THE LIFE 



oy 



BENJAMIN F. WADE 



A. G. RIDDLE 



Author^/ 'The Li/f, Character ami rtiblic Sen'tces of James A. Carfteld^ 
'Sttuiet.ti anU Laii'jcrs, Etc. 




Cleveland, 0. : William W. Williams 
18S7 






Copyright, 1887, 
By W. W. Williams. 

All Bights Reserved. 



TO 

Mrs. Caroline Rosekrans Wade. 

THIS SKETCH OF A 

VALUABLE, EXALTED AND NOBLE LIFE, 

TO WHICH SHE CONTRIBUTED SO MUCH. IS INSCRIBED. 

WITH THE PROFOUNDEST RESPECT. 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

To THE Reader. 9 

Chapter I ii 

Some Personal Peculiarities.— Destroyed Papers. — Opposed all 
Ceremonies and Celebrations. — Medford, Seat of the Wades. 
— Their American Ancestry. — Wades, Dudleys, Bradstreets. — 
The Tenth Muse.— Day of Doom.^ — James Wade. — Pre-Revo- 
lutionary Times and Influences. — Bunker Hill. — Privateering. 
— Prison Ship. — Mary Upham. — James and Mary. — Cousins 
Wedded. — Feeding Hill's Home and Life. — Birth of Benj. F. 
— Education. — Migration of the Wades to Ohio. 

Chapter 11 42 

Planting Puritans in Ohio.— South and North.— Old Grant of 
Charles H. — Connecticut's Claim. — Ashtabula.— Andover. — 
Pioneer Life.— The Wade Brothers.— Lake Erie.— A Drover.— 
Frank's Trip East.— Visits his Eldest Brother.— Works on the 
Erie Canal. --Seward Celebrates him in the Senate.— Returns 
Home.— Studies Law. — Law and Lawyers of that Time.— 
James and Mary Pass Away. 



Chapter ni 

Admitted to the Bar.— Jefferson.— The Courts.— Trial by Jury.- 
Helps of the Lawyer.— Reports of that Time. -First Case.— 
Practice. —Difficulties in Speaking.— Overcomes Them.— J. R. 
Giddings. — Giddings and Wade. — Personal Appearance.— 
Manners.— Rudeness of Speech.— Religion.— Pergonal Popu- 
larity. — Many Young Imitators. — Financial Disaster of 1837.— 
General Ruin. — Wade and Ranney. 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Chapter IV 95 

A Freak of Fashion. — Old Bachelor's Romance. — Caroline M, 
Rosekrans. — Parentage. — Her Mother's Second Marriage. — 
General Parsons. — Henry E. Parsons. — Removal to Ashtabula. 
— Caroline Meets Frank Wade. — His Speech. — Courtship and 
Campaign of 1840.— Marriage. — Home Life at Jefferson. — 
First Meets Fillmore. — Elected Judge. — His Circuit and Labors. 
—^Contest with the State Supreme Court. — Taxation of Costs. — 
Retires from the Bench. — Action of the Bar. 

Chapter V 117 

Slavery. — Summerset's Case. — Trade in Negroes. — Clarkson. — 
Wilberforce. — Slavery Abohshed by the Northern States. — 
Judge Taney's Words. — Slavery not before Sectional. — Fugi- 
tive Slaves. — Quakers. — Maroons. — Change of Moral Senti- 
ment. — Louisiana Admitted. — Missouri Admitted. — Immediate 
Emancipation. — The North Still Pro-Slavery. — Charles Ham- 
mond. — Theodore Weld. — Lundy. — Garrison. — ^J. G. Birney. 
— ^J. L. Adams. — Ohio Black Laws. — Wade in the Ohio Sen- 
ate. — Kentucky Commissioners to Ohio. — Tin Pan. — Speech 
on the Kentucky Slave Bill. — Gregory Powers. — Defeated for 
Re-election. — Re-election in 1841. 

Chapter VI 146 

Harrison Campaign of 1840.— Underestimate of It. — Political 
Parties and Leaders. — Whig National Convention, December 4, 
1839. —Democratic, May 5, 1840. — Issues. — Thomas Corwin. 
— Result. — Birney's Vote. — J. R. Giddings Enters Twenty-sixth 
Congress. — Death of President Harrison. — Censure of Adams. — 
Giddings. — Texas.— Election of 1844. — Henry Clay. — Birney's 
Vote. — Election of 1848. — Free-soil Party. — Vote for Van 
Buren. — Mr. Giddings Nominated for the Senate. — Mr. Chase 
Elected. — Ohio Legislature.— Compromises of 1850-51. — Fall 
of Daniel Webster. — Fugitive Slave Act Denounced by Judge 
Wade. 

Chapter VII 169 

The Capital in 1851. — Population and Character. — Congressional 

Life. — The Thirty-second Congress. — The Senate. — The House. 

— The New Senators. — Pen Sketches. — Places on Committees. 

— Compromises of 1850-51. — A Final Settlement. — Fillmore- 



CONTENTS. 



Corwin. — Wade's Speech on the Collins Subsidy. — General 
Cass. — Election of 1852. — Conventions — Candidates. — Clay 
and Webster.— Choat.— The Free-soil Party.— The Popular 
Vote. — Thirty-third Congress. — New Senators,— Pierce's Mes- 
sage. — Nebraska.— Kansas. — Douglas-Chase- Wade Speeches. 
—Bill Passes the Senate. — Passes the House.— The Vote.— The 
Globe. 

Chapter VIII 201 

Struggles on Kansas Soil.— Seven Years' War.— Thirty-fourth 
Congress. — Sumner Assaulted. — Slidel.— Douglas.— Toombs 
Approves. — Is denounced by Wade.— Dr. Welling's Account. 
—Wade and Toombs.— Wade and Clayton.— Burlingame and 
Brooks.— 1856 Presidential Election.— Fremont —Buchanan. — 
Dred Scott.— Thirty-fifth Congress.— Wade's Posiuon.— Un- 
conscious Preparation.— Thirty-sixth Congress.— Harper's Fer- 
ry.— Its Investigation.— Wade's Speeches.— John Sherman. — 
Southern Departure.— 1860.— The Popular Vote.— The Pryor- 
Potter Episode. 

Chapter IX 237 

Mr. Lincoln and the Thirty-seventh Congress.— Their Labor.— 
Conditions.— Blair.— Wade.— Stevens. — Stanton. —Seward.— 
Chase.— The Crittenden Resolutions. — Extra Session.— Bull 
Run.— Wade There.— Committee on Conduct of the War.— 
Congress Clarified .—Virginia. —Dismembered. — Vallandigham 
and the Democracy. — Clamor Against Mr. Lincoln. — The Davis- 
Wade Manifesto.— The Thirty-eighth Conscription.— Schenck. 
— Garfield. — Blaine. 

Chapter X 268 

The Conquered.— Task of the Conquerors.— President Johnson. 
—His Reconstruction.— The Thirty-ninth Congress.— New 
Men.— Civil Rights.— The Fortieth Congress.— New Men.— 
Mr. Stanton.— Impeachment Managers.— The Impeachment 
Court. — The Trial. — Speeches. — Acquittal. — Congressional 
Reconstruction.— The Freedmen.— The Experiment of Their 
Use.— Mr. Wade's Retirement.— The Close. 



I . 



TO THE READER. 

It may be stated that this sketch of an eminent 
Western Senator was written in detached papers 
for the Magazine of Western History. That peri- 
odical is largely devoted to the beginnings, 
the hitherto unwritten sources of history. In 
something of the spirit of that work, the earlier 
of my chapters were composed — taking note of 
obscure things, having but a general influence on the 
fortunes of Mr. Wade, but showing a flavor of, if not 
the spirit of the times, of his American ancestors, 
and of the first half of his own life. These papers, 
unchanged, with headings, make the chapters of 
the volume here presented to the public. Care 
has been taken to attribute no opinion or senti- 
ment to Mr. Wade not his. He is nowhere made 
responsible for the notions of the writer. 

In my mental vision he stands apart from his 
fellows, a heroic, manly, rugged, unique form, of 
a type never too numerous, and now so rare as to 
seem solitary ; a man provoking admiration, 



10 TO THE READER. 

commanding respect, gaining entire confidence 
without consciously seeking either. 

The writer is not without hope that his pages 
will realize something of this conception to a 
reader who may make a study of the influences 
which gave shape to the colossal forms of our later 
history. 

A. G. R. 

Washington, July, 1886. 



CHAPTER I. 

Some Personal Peculiarities. — Destroyed Papers. — Opposed all Cere- 
monies and Celebrations. — Medford, Seat of the Wades. — Their 
American Ancestry. — Wades, Dudleys, Bradstreets. — The Tenth 
Muse. — Day of Doom. — ^James Wade.— Pre-Revolutionary Times 
and Influences. — Bunker Hill. — Privateering. — Prison Ship. — Mary 
Upham. — ^James and Mary. — Cousins Wedded. — Feeding Hill's 
Home and Life. — Birth of Benj. F. — Education.— Migration of the 
Wades to Ohio. 

By nature, emulous and loving praise, man is the 
one braggart of the universe. The Hebrews even 
clothed their Jehovah with this quality as a con- 
trolling attribute. To be modest is more rare in 
man than woman, and is a mark of distinction in 
him. If he does not boast of his achievements, 
we laud them for him ; and when a distinguished 
man dies, scores of common men pull themselves 
into notice by the hair of his fallen head We 
boast of our achievements in civilization, and are 
fond of measuring the distance between ourselves 
and the primitive man, yet we retain many of the 
characteristics of the veriest savages. We build 
fires to attest our joy, and literally make huge noises 
to celebrate our achievements. We murder and 
slay as savages always have, and build up a pile of 



12 B. F. WADE. 

senseless stones to immortalize our greatest man. 
To-day we complete the rock monument of Wash- 
ington ; we celebrate the event with salvos of artil- 
lery, and congratulate ourselves upon a great deed 
accomplished. We have secured the stone-immor- 
tality of George Washington, and have done our 
duty. We are never to escape the age of 
stone. 

As a rule, men are remembered as long as they 
deserve to be. A man's life is his only fitting 
monument. What irony so bitter as the question : 
** Whose monument is this ? " The man has dis- 
appeared, and here is a stone-exclamation point 
against inevitable forgetfulness. The world is too 
busy to preserve dead leaves even as specimens ; 
let them rot where they fall, if haply the earth 
may be fertilized by their timely decay. 

I fear my present work will hardly be distin- 
guishable from a very ordinary stone-heap near the 
grave of the distinguished dead, whose memory 
will survive, whatever we may do or say, with that 
of the great men of the remarkable time in which 
he lived and worked. How great those men were, 
what the real magnitude of the events of their time, 
we may never know. We were too near them, too 
much a part of them, whatever may be our powers 
of observation, to correctly estimate their value and 
importance in the world's history or that of our 
own country. Hundreds of pens are now busy 
inditing what the writers call history. When the 
real historian comes, fifty or one hundred years 



B. F. WADE. 13 

hence, what a dusting and crumpling of waste pa- 
per there will be ! 

My labors will be of a man of the most singular 
and, in some ways, unfortunate modesty. In no 
way a builder of dead monuments, he was seem- 
ingly a careful, persistent destroyer of all the ordi- 
nary means from which hisjown personal history 
could be composed, or a memoir of his time and 
associates ; an abhorer of pageantry of every kind 
for all occasions. Men, living or dead, were to be 
left as their lives and actions left them. One of 
the propelling forces of the War of the Rebellion — 
a keen observer, seeing the best and worst of men, 
taking their best as no more than their country's 
due — he was no lauder, no praiser, always speak- 
ing words of inspiration ; and, one of the few just 
in their estimates of men, he shrank from all pomp, 
all parade of woe, all funereal show of grief, when 
they fell by the wayside. 

The steadiest and most inflexible as the most 
radical of the supporters of the national cause, 
doing fullest justice to Mr. Lincoln, he shrank 
from the sable pageantry over his remains. In 
that he had no part ; was not present as a spec- 
tator. The "catafalque," with its blackness of 
drapery and sableness of plumes, with all the 
weary and public wail of woe, were to him mean- 
ingless, ludicrous, vainest mockery. For himself 
he probably never instituted a comparison between 
himself and another ; never spent a moment in 
estimating the quality and rank of his own actions 



14 B. F. WADE. 

in the minds of men. It was his fortune to be as 
little the object of criticism, through a long con- 
spicuous career, as any man in our history. To 
live and do heartily, with all his might, the things 
which came to his hands to do, never shirking, 
however onerous ; never evading, however un- 
pleasant ; seeking and meeting the hardest and 
worst, which yet some man must do ; living truth 
in his life, doing truth in his acts, speaking truth 
in his words ; seeming not to care for words of 
blame or praise ; tender, strong, of the heroic in 
mould of soul and heart, he lived, did his work, 
died, and was loved, trusted, feared and respected 
as few of his time were, and will be remembered. 
The least secretive of men, the openest of approach, 
the easiest to know, and one of the widest known ; 
it is not easy, save in these broad, strong lines to 
sketch him, or tell the story of his real life, so that 
the younger generation, the men who did not 
know him, will yet appreciate him for what he 
intrinsically was. He was a sayer of things to be 
repeated, a doer of things to be told of. No one 
followed him around to note and preserve these ; 
no one has gleaned them up for a book. They 
are already matters of tradition. No man of his 
time wrote and left so few memorials of himself. 
He left none ; no sign or mark. Seemingly with- 
out the slightest literary instinct, the few papers 
he made were for a special purpose ; that answered, 
they were destroyed. He seems systematically 
to have destroyed papers. He kept no journal, 



B. F. WADE. 15 

made no diary, notes or memoranda. At the end 
of a session or campaign, letters and papers of all 
descriptions, not in the form of printed books, 
were burned. Though a born warrior, no man so 
hated strife and every species of personal warfare. 
He never had any. If differences arose, he set- 
tled them at once in the most direct and decisive 
way ; ended them so that nothing remained — 
neither bitterness nor scandal. This disposition 
to make a total final end of things was at the bot- 
tom of his destruction of papers. If saved, some- 
body would want to pry into them, re-open old 
wounds, renew old strifes. Cut off all sources of 
evidence, and the thing would have to die. With 
him private history — the history of common men, 
the men with whom he daily associated — was of 
no account. It was a history of strifes and bick- 
erings, of failures, at the best. Let it perish. It 
was not necessary to the public history, the na- 
tional annals, and he governed himself accordingly. 
So he seldom or never spoke of himself to others, 
save sparingly to the most intimate. Though a 
man of thought, he was a man of action, of deeds, 
not of words and letters ; and such, in the main, 
were his associates. A few instances of literary 
men who approached him for a purpose may have 
occurred. Their reception was not encouraging, 
and few save newspaper correspondents made him 
the subject of literary labors. Though he did not 
at all share in the elder Senator Cameron's attrib- 
uted estimate of literary men, he did not seek, 



16 B. F. WADE. 

nor was he sought by them. Busy, content to do 
his work, doing more and doing better than was 
given to good workers, and when done, leaving it 
for the use and help it might be without an ac- 
companying word of explanation of his motive, he 
permitted others to take the credit of it if they 
would. So he made his active, robust way, push- 
ing intermeddlers out of it, dealing with the mo- 
mentous issues of his time unhesitatingly, boldly, 
wisely, at the centre of life and strength, careless 
of nothing save what was said of him, or the part 
he played in the great events of the great epoch. 
When his share of the work 'was done, when the 
underlying causes which changed somewhat the 
configuration of the continent perished, without 
thought or care of how history might deal with 
him and his share in affairs, anxious only that 
what was gained should not be lost, he died. 

Such a man was not the product of accident. 
Such men never can be. Causes through genera- 
tions must conspire to such results, the science of 
which is still to be searched out and formulated. 
We trace his parentage back through the four or 
five generations of Englishmen in America, of 
whom the history of the planting-time of New 
England makes honorable mention. A long-lived, 
tough, sinewy strain of men and women of varied 
endowments contributed their modified qualities 
to his make-up and furnishing-forth ; men and 
women themselves to be changed, wrought, per- 
fected, by the severest of Puritan schools, in the rig- 



B. F. JVADE. 17 

orous climate and ungenerous soil of Massachu- 
setts, in its struggle for place and existence among 
new and old peoples. 

Ancient Medford, five or six miles to the north- 
west of more ancient Boston, at the head of navi- 
gation of the small Mystic river, which came to 
be famous for ship-building, was the Massachusetts 
seat of the Wades. Thither came Jonathan Wade 
from county of Norfolk (country of the Norse 
folk), England, in 1632. He seems for a time to 
have been at Ipswich, where he was a freeman in 
1634. He receives much and honorable mention 
in the history of Medford. At what time he 
transferred himself to the latter place does not 
appear, probably some years later; for we find 
him buying four hundred acres of land on the 
south side of the river, near Medford bridge, Oc- 
tober 2, 1656, of one Matthew Avery of Ipswich. 
He is spoken of as Major Wade, a man of wor- 
ship, who paid the largest tax of any man in Med- 
ford. He gave the town a landing about 1680, 
one of several which Medford had. It is said the 
house he built and dwelt in there, though a 
wooden structure, was in a sound, habitable con- 
dition in 1855. Nothing is said of his wife or 
children save one. He died — one authority says 
in 1683, another, in 1689. He was the father of 
Major Nathaniel Wade, the date of whose birth is 
not given. The history mentions this Nathaniel. 
Dealing with churches, it gives this curious origin 
of pews in ''meeting-houses" in New England. 



18 B. F. WADE. 

To call the place of worship, made of sticks and 
stones, a church savored too much of papacy, 
episcopacy, prelacy, for the severe Puritan, who, 
as is historic, made these structures like his re- 
ligion, as ugly and uncomfortable as might be. 
He did not believe in helps to virtue and religion. 
Both were rendered as forbidding as possible. No 
artificial means of heating^ their dreary meeting- 
houses was permitted ; but when the proximity 
to fires, which have since generally died out, 
where their ministers kept them, is remembered, 
the rigors of even a New England winter went for 
little. By vote of the town on his petition, it was 
ordered — " May 25, 1696, Major Nathaniel Wade 
shall have liberty to build a pew in the meeting- 
house, when he shall see reason to do so." Of 
course he was to weigh well the deed. This ex- 
traordinary concession marks the estimation in 
which he was held at Medford. He has another 
and much stronger claim upon our consideration. 
His wife was the daughter of Governor Bradstreet 
and Anne Dudley Bradstreet, the famous New 
England poetess, in her time called "The Tenth 
Muse," and a daughter of Governor Thomas Dud- 
ley. These are persons entitled to a moment's 
attention on their own account, and especially as 
their descendant is to be the subject of our literary 
labors. 

Dudley was a great name in older English his- 
tory. It was no less conspicuous in newer Eng- 
lish annals. It was the name of several royal and 



B. F. WADE. 



19 



Other officers in Massachusetts. Of these, Thomas 
Dudley was- born in Northampton, England, in 
1576. In 1630 he was sent to Massachusetts as 
deputy governor, chosen governor in 1634, '40 
and '45, died at Roxbury in 1652, a man of the 
sternest Puritan integrity. He had a son Joseph, 
who was successively chief-justice of Massachusetts 
and New York, governor of the Isle of Wight, 
and finally governor of Massachusetts from 1702 
to 171 5. So Joseph's son, Paul, was chief-justice 
of Massachusetts. 

Anne Dudley, daughter of Governor Thomas 
and sister of Governor Joseph, was born in 1612. 
She seems to have been carefully reared, as be- 
came a gentlewoman. Her father was attached 
to the service of the Earl of Lincoln, and she 
spent much of her short girlhood at his castle 
of Sempringham, and was married at sixteen. 
Simon Bradstreet, her husband, was nine years 
older, and was also reared in the the austere 
reUgious family of the earl. The young people 
were for years members of the family, and their 
marriage was a love match. That occurred in 
1628, and two years later they were of the wealthy 
and well-born party who entered upon the coloni- 
zation of Massachusetts and reached the province 
in 1630. Bradstreet was of a good Suffolk family. 
The coming avvav of these wealthy, carefully 
reared people from the luxury of Old England to 
the savagery and penury of the New, was a sore 
trial, and to none more so than to the tender 



20 B. F. WADE. 

child-wife, who had a scholarly taste for learning 
and a poet's relish for refinement, pleasant sur- 
roundings and culture. She must have recoiled, 
as we know she did, from the rude, wild forms of 
life in the rocky, sterile wilderness of New Eng- 
land. Notwithstanding she saw the hand of God 
in it, all her life was a subdued wail of a homesick 
heart. 

The first edition of her poems, which were ex- 
tensive, was published in London in 1650, and a 
third edition in 1658. They were brought out in 
our time at Charlestown, in a fine edition, in 1867, 

Of her children she sang : 

" I had eight birds hatch'd in the nest ; 
Four cocks there were, and hens the rest ; 
I nursed them up with pious care, 
For cost nor labor did I spare, 
Till at last they felt the wing. 
Mounted the trees and learned to sing." 

She was a fine prose writer, and not without 
poetic instincts. Her genius was too weak to es- 
cape the vicious poetic forms and spirit of her 
time. Her work was cast in the quaint and dreary 
mould of that age, and was neither worse nor bet- 
ter than its good average. Her dialogues between 
Old England and New, between the four elements, 
a long allegory, would be melancholy reading 
now. "Contemplation," a later production, is 
now esteemed her best poem. 

Simon Bradstreet was governor when the char- 
ter was annulled, in 1686 ; was again elected when 
that worthy, Governor Andros, was deposed and 



B. F. WADE. 21 

imprisoned, in 1689, ^"<^ held the place till the ar- 
rival of rough and sturdy Sir William Phipps, in 
1692, who brought out the new charter. He was 
a prudent, plain, strong-minded man, and, if he 
thought Massachusetts was unable to resist Charles 
II, whom he was sent to congratulate on his ac- 
cession, he was untouched with the Salem witch- 
craft craze. Anne died September 16, 1672 ; her 
husband survived till 1697. 

Mercy Bradstreet, daughter of Anne, and Major 
Nathaniel Wade were married October 31, 1672, 
and had liberty later to set up a family pew in the 
meeting-house. That he saw reason to, is mat- 
ter of inference. 

To these, with other children, was born Brad- 
street Wade, in 168 1, at Medford — the parents 
dying, the father in 1707, the mother eight years 
later. Bradstreet Wade became the husband of 
Lydia Newhall, October 17, 1706, and died De- 
cember 9, 1738. His son Samuel saw the light 
April 21, 17 1 5, married Martha Upham, daugh- 
ter of James Upham and Dorothy Wigglesworth, 
December 2, 1741. These were the parents of 
James Wade, the father of our Benjamin Franklin 
Wade. James Wade's grandm.other, Dorothy 
Wigglesworth, was the daughter of the Reverend 
Michael Wigglesworth, a remarkable man, and 
also a poet of no mean power. His principal work, 
the ' Day of Doom,' saves his name from oblivion^ 
He was born in England in 163 1, was carried to 
Charlestown, Massachusetts, when seven years 



22 B. F. WADE. 

old, graduated at Harvard 165 1, and was settled 
over the church at Maiden, Massachusetts, 1656. 
His famous poem was first published in 1662, and 
was for a century and a half the most popular lit- 
erary production of New England, going through 
many editions in various popular forms, the latest 
in 1867. It is the most lurid and direful array of 
terrors and horrors ever made to jostle and jingle 
in jerky rhyme, and became at once the burning 
fountain for images and figures of speech of the 
turgid Puritan pulpit eloquence of New England, 
as it is now the museum of the burnt out and fos- 
silized remains of that volcanic age of theology. 
Committed to memory, recited, quoted on all oc- 
casions, it had much to do in forming the common 
mind and character of the people. Slight speci- 
mens will show its qualities, imaginative and lit- 
erary. 

Thus the day dawns : 

For at midnight breaks forth a Hght 

Which turns the night to day, 
And speedily an hideous cry 

Doth all the world dismay. 

Many pages of this measure and form, and the 
final trump sounds and there is a general scramble 
of course. As a good many had reasons for not 
caring to appear for trial, a swarm of fast-winged 
bailiffs are sent to prod them into court, when the 
sheep are divided off and business opens rather 
briskly. The saints are first attended to, and dis- 
patched to their thrones, nothing loth to take part 



B. F. WADE. 23 

in judging the sinners. Business first; pleasure 
follows. Sinners are disposed of in classes for ex- 
pedition. Finally reprobate infants are reached : 

Then to the bar they all draw near 

Who died in infancy, 
And never had of good or bad 

Effected personally ; 

But from the womb unto the tomb 

Were straightway carried, 
Or, at the least, e'er they trangressed, 

Who thus begun to plead : 

Poor, deserted things ! Left to their own re- 
sources, it must be confessed they made a stout 
case of it. They could not see, any more than 
can we, why they should burn eternally on Adam's 
account, especially, as the old gentleman himself 
sat near by on a very comfortable throne. How- 
ever, according to Wigglesworth, God found little 
difficulty in brushing away their baby arguments, 
which he is made to do in this luminous way : 

You, sinners are ; and such a share 

As sinners may expect ; 
Such you shall have ; for I do save 

None but mine own elect. 

This must have been satisfactory. However, 
he concludes on the whole : 

Yet to compare your sin with their, 

Who lived a longer time, 
I do confess yours is much less, 

Though every sin's a crime. 

A crime it is ; therefore in bliss 

You many not hope to dwell, 
But unto you I shall allow 

The easiest room in hell. 



24 B. F. WADE. 

This was letting the poor things off easy con- 
sidering the enormity of their offenses, and doubt- 
less exceptionally tender-hearted devils were 
assigned as nurses. Finally the whole host are 
disposed of, and God is made to call the Redeemer 
and Saviour to dispose of those he tried to redeem 
and save. I may give but four of the many lines 
in which the final judgment is pronounced : 

But get away without delay, 

Christ pities not your cry ; 
Depart to hell ; there may you dwell 

And roar eternally. 

Of their fortunes after being thus disposed of, 
the poet gives us this glowing picture : 

They live to lie in misery 

And bear eternal woe ; 
And Uve they must while God is just 

That he may plague them so. 

Of course, having enjoyed the sight of these 
comforting spectacles, the saints in fitting strains, 
are dismissed to bliss generally. Cotton Mather 
said the ' Day of Doom ' would be read in New 
England till its pictures were realized by the event* 
Michael had a son Samuel, who seems to have 
been capable of poetry in a milder form — real 
poetry — but who contented himself with the office 
and duties of a country parson. The author of the 
' Day of Doom ' was equal to different work. His 
daughter Dorothy, as we have seen, was the 
grandmother of our B. F. Wade. 

* Whoever would know more of the two greatest New England poets 
of colonial times should read what is said of them in Professor Tyler's 
admirable ' History of American Literature,' not yet concluded. 



B. F. WADE. 25 

James Wade was born at Medford, still the seat 
of the Wades, July 8, 1750, and would lack four 
days of being twenty-six on the declaration of 
independence. His birth was at the beginning 
of a noisy, stirring period. He was four years old 
when Washington fought the first battle that 
opened the wide, long desolating war, one result 
of which was the transfer of Canada to England 
and establish British dominion in America. It 
was a day of adventure. Medford was an old 
town, was within reach of the salt wafts of the 
ocean. Though born in 1750, and living till 1826 
— when the writer of these sketches was ten years 
old — with a son still living, no one has told us the 
manner of boy or man he w^as. Hardy, robust, 
sinewy, right-headed, he must have been, and 
well educated, for such as passed for education 
outside of Harvard. He grew up in the intensely 
patriotic atmosphere of stormy Boston, during the 
pre-revolutionary years. Heard the Adamses, 
Otis and Warren, in old Faneuil — not then so 
old ; was there through the times of the stamps, 
the destruction of the tea, the Boston massacre — 
always to be a massacre, though a jury of Middle- 
sex county acquitted the officers and soldiers who 
committed it. He daily saw the red-coated sol- 
diers about the streets of Boston, and hated them 
for what they stood for ; was to see more of them, 
as they were to see him, elsewhere and full soon. 
The lithe young Englishman of American birth 
and nervous organization was early a member of 



26 B. F. WADE. 

a train-band, an adept in the manual of arms. 
Think of a youth thus nurtured and growing up. 
Of course, he was at the first facing of the hostile 
elements, not in the least premature, where the 
flash of the British muskets was met by the answer- 
ing flash of the armed patriots, flash for flash, at 
Concord ; and so on to Lexington, and at 
the decisive Bunker Hill's epoch-making bat- 
tle, decisive that war was to be and so an end, 
which was also a beginning greater than the end 
it followed. He could hardly fail of a predilection 
for the sea, and we next see him on board a 
privateer and a prisoner, after various adventures. 
Privateering was then a universally recognized 
means of public war, though dealt with by the 
royal cruisers as but one remove from piracy. 
Our maternal foe was not eminent for clem- 
ency to rebels taken in arms, and distinguished 
against those taken on private armed ships, 
though sailing under letters of marque all squarely. 
James Wade was carried to Halifax, where, 
languishing for an unknown period, he was trans- 
ferred to a prison ship of the ' ' Jersey prison ship " 
class, place of nameless horrors. Here he and his 
fellows conspired against their jailers, overcame, 
captured them and their " old prison hulk," and 
made good their escape to freedom and more war. 
Restless, adventurous, he gave his time and ener- 
gies to the war when not in prison. When that 
was ended, like the country he was impoverished, 
and turned to peaceful pursuits, with the habits 



B. F. WADE, 27 

and modes of thoug^ht formed by his many years 
as a soldier, sailor and adventurer. 

His mother, was Martha Upham, as will be 
remembered, daughter of James Upham. She 
had a brother, Edward Upham, a graduate of 
Harvard in 1734, and curiously enough, he became 
a Baptist clergyman and was settled first at New- 
port, Rhode Island — that Baptist colony and state. 
He was one of the trustees of Brown University ; 
was offered the first presidency of it, which he 
declined. Later he made his way back to Massa- 
chusetts and established himself at West Spring- 
field,^ on the west side of the Connecticut river. 
That region in western Massachusetts was then 
new, remote and rude. Just when he settled there 
is not apparent. 

The narrow, winding, lovely valley of the Con- 
necticut was always very fertile, while on each 
side of it the country rises into a hilly, almost 
mountainous region, rocky, with a starved, sandy 
soil, soon exhausted. 

Rev. Edward Upham 's youngest daughter was 
a winsome maiden, though no longer young, born 
at Newport in 1752, when her cousin James, with 
the romance of his career, made his way to visit 
his uncle, amid the breezy hills of West Spring- 
field. Just where they first met — probably long 
before — or under what circumstances, no one has 
told us. They were cousins, which made court- 

* The early colonists had the English way of repeating names of 
places with the prefix north, south, east, west. 



28 B. F. WADE. 

ship easy. No one has told us a word of that. 
Easy or hard, they were married January 15, 178 1, 
and made their home in " Feeding Hills" parish, 
a few miles southerly of West Springfield. The 
name Feeding Hills may still be found on the 
larger maps of Massachusetts, as a small town. 
A thin, sandy-soiled, rocky, hilly country, abound- 
ing in trout streams, its principal products were 
fine scenery, huckleberries and wintergreens. It 
was a region early devoted to wild pasturage for 
kine-herds of the more favored valley and other 
adjacent places, and hence the name. 

At the marriage of these thus descended En- 
glish cousins, James Wade was thirty-one years 
old, and we may assume that Mary, the daughter 
of a Baptist clergyman of West Springfield, was 
rich only in person, intellect, piety, womanly 
qualities and graces, educated for the subordinate 
position then assigned generally to woman, even 
in the family. There is ample testimony to her 
unusual excellence as a woman of very considerable 
mental endowment, judgment, fine sense, steady 
courage and wifely devotion. As a mother she 
ranked with the noblest. She had need for the 
exercise of all her faculties in the place to which 
she was assigned in life, where, as everywhere, 
when she performs her duty, woman's place is 
the least favored. 

At what time the young pair set up their 
homestead, amid the outlying Feeding Hills, we 
are not told, nor of the kind of habitation they 



B. F. WADE. 29 

occupied. We know it was humble, and that the 
implements of the young housewife were simple 
and primitive. No one has told us of the home- 
faring of this family. Human life is essentially 
the same under all conditions, admitting its con- 
tinuance. Individuals adjust themselves to their 
various surroundings and unconsciously work out 
a portion of the as yet unsolved problem. Strait- 
ened as were their circumstances, we know their 
life was robust and healthful. To toil early and 
late, steadily, persistently, for bread, meat and 
raiment, wrung from an ungenial soil, with little 
perceptible gain or advance, save in years, and 
increasing mouths to feed, bodies to clothe and 
shelter, was the changeless though ever-growing 
task of James till old age came upon him in the 
barren, rocky hills. 

To bear, nurse and rear children ; to econo- 
mize, contrive and eke out from scantiest stores 
and meet the ever increasing demand with small- 
est increase of supply ; to be first up ere dawn 
and the last to retire, caring for the infants 
during the night ; to work and toil early, lose her 
girlish comeliness ; to love and fear God, with the 
awful fear of the Puritan ; to rear her children in 
that fear ; to trust and doubt and hope for them, 
watch their unfolding minds, their dispositions, 
hearts and morals, till years enfeebled her — was 
the life of Mary.* Forty years of this life amid 

* Current biography makes scanty mention of the mother, often 
omits all notice of wife and marriage. Whoever thus writes has 



so B. F. WADE. 

the grim, rocky hills, scrub pines and cedars, and 
the family sought a new home in the newer New 
England of the northern Ohio woods of the Re- 
serve, from 1 78 1 to 1 82 1. 

To these parents were born eleven children, all 
in the Feeding Hills home. Of these the four 
eldest were girls. Their names and dates of birth 
were as follows : 

Martha Upham Wade, born August 24, 1782. 
She became the wife of Corlleain Brigden, and 
died at Andover, Ohio. 

Nancy Wade, born July 2, 1784, and died in 
infancy. 

Nancy Wade, second, born February 26, 1786, 
became the wife of John Picket, and died also in 
Andover. 

Mary Wade, born September 2, 1787, married 
William Bettis, and died in Andover. 

James Wade, born June 5, 1789. For his first 
wife he had Sally Mulford, for his second Eliza- 
beth Hughes. He died in 1868. 

Charles Wade, born April 22, 1791, died in 
infancy. 

Samuel Sidney Wade, born May 11, 1793, 
married Emily Cadwell, died at Andover. 

Theodore Leonard Wade, born March 13, 1797, 
three times married. His second wife was Au- 



failed to make a study of the most important factors of a man's life. 
Next in importance to birth is his marriage, and the wife shares with 
the mother the labor and responsibility of shaping his fortunes and 
destinies. 



B. F. WADE. 31 

gusta Bettis, a cousin. A daughter by this 
wife became Mrs. Schuyler Colfax. His third 
was also a cousin. He died in Andover. 

Charles H. Wade, born December 8, 1798. 
He married Julietta Spear, who bore him three 
children. He is the sole survivor of the family 
living in Andover.^ 

Benjamin Franklin Wade, born October 27, 
1800. 

Edward Wade, born November 22, 1802, twice 
married. First to Sarah Louise Atkins. His 
second was Mary P. Hall. He died in 1866. 

Eleven children, four girls and seven boys, 
with twenty years difference between the oldest 
and the youngest ! Curiously enough, no name 
of anv of the distinguished ancestors appears 
among the boys, save Edward. Not a Dudley, 
Bradstreet or Upham. Martha Upham and 
Nancy of the female line. Nor is there a Jona- 
than or Nathaniel. A tough, long-lived family 
and race 1 All married and affectionate, remain- 
ing together in the bosom of the Feeding Hills, 
and making their new homes together in Ohio, all 
save the eldest bearing his father's name. By 
popular legend Edward, a seventh son in un- 
broken succession, was born to happy fortune. 
His last years were the saddest that can fall to 
man. He died of softening of the brain. 

The year 1800 is a handy year to date from, as 
is that of the birth year of Frank's father, the half 

* April, 1885. 



32 B. F, WADE. 

century year before. Edward, the youngest, was 
a scarcely less remarkable man than Frank, in 
some ways fully his equal. The mysteries of 
transmission and reproduction are still elusive. 
That must be a fine strain of men and women, 
and that must have been a remarkable family, 
where the tenth and eleventh were of the quality 
of Frank-f- and Edward Wade. There are none 
now to tell us the manner of child Frank was, this 
greatest of the descendants of the Dudleys, the 
Bradstreets, the Wades, Wigglesworths and Up- 
hams. He would well repay a study if the mate- 
rial existed. Great men always arise in unlooked 
for homesteads. There is nothing to mark them. 
No man probably could now, of all the living boys, 
name one of the one hundred remarkable men of 
this country forty years hence. It is only when 
one has achieved distinction that an effort is made 
to reproduce his early years, and construct a fitting 
child- and boyhood for him. We can fancy him a 
brave, active, adventurous child and boy, eager, 
ready, studious, thoughtful, coming late into the 
already overpeopled house, he and his little baby 
brother Edward — little Ned, as he would be 
called — taken in hands by the elder sisters, bloom- 

fThrough all his early life in Northern Ohio, and still among the 
members of his family, the subject of this memoir was known as Frank 
Wade, and such he will be here called, as his younger brother was Ned 
Wade. "Ben" and "Old Ben" came into use at Washington, and 
though they grew into use in Ohio, were always less popular. To the 
writer, who knew him intimately all his own adult life, "Ben Wade" 
was somethmg different and less than "Frank Wade," the ideal of all 
the younger men in the wide reach of his acquaintance. 



B. F. WADE. 33 

ing into young women comeliness, early taught to 
make his boy hands and active feet useful, scamp- 
ering among the wild Agawam hills, emulous to 
be with and imitate the older brothers, to whom 
James, who was called Jim, of course, was an ideal 
hero. This is not all fancy, for it was in the or- 
derly course of things in a New England family. 
The father is more phantom-like to us. The 
mother stands firmly or moves materially the un- 
conscious head and centre of her now completed 
flock, teaching each and all the New England Cate- 
chism, the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster 
assemblage of divines of 1646, in which the meta- 
physical achievements of the Calvinistic theology 
of that day are reduced to dogmatic forms and set 
forth in categoric questions and answers, covering 
the whole fruitful field of the nature and essence, 
the will and government of God, the origin and 
nature of man, the advent of the Son, the nature 
and consequence of sin, the atonement, and the 
ultimate destiny of men. It was a wide field 
copiously treated, and among the first lessons sup- 
plied to the plastic childish mind. It was not in 
nature that Mary Upham neglected to have the 
docile Frank and Ned imbibe this rather dry and 
innutritious bread of the life to come. So, of 
course, they committed to memory, possibly, the 
whole of the great-grandfatherly 'Day of Doom"^ 
and were properly saturated with the rather lurid 



*This was true of Frank. He used occasionally to repeat doleful 
passages from it. 



34 B. F. WADE. 

religious atmosphere of that time, already begin- 
ning to break, fade and yield to a purer air and a 
whiter light. That both took long, constant and 
deep lessons of biblical reading we know, as both 
were remarkably conversant with the Scriptures, 
especially the elder canon, which they kept up 
through life. The younger was especially famous 
for his many and happy quotations in his speeches 
at the bar, and on political occasions. No matter, 
Mary was a tender mother, and reared her children 
under a full sense of the awful responsibility rest- 
ing upon her for ^having brought into the world 
beings born to such fearful destinies. The boys 
were docile ; they took the prescribed portion, 
learned it, and escaped to the breezy hills, to the 
trout streams; were permitted to go to the river — 
the little, shallow, noisy Agawam — and on some 
distant and very rare occasions were taken by Jim 
and Charley to the river of rivers, the Connecti- 
cut, a larger, longer river, in the fancy of the New 
England boy, than the Mississippi or even the 
Jordan, with which he was more familiar. 

We know that the New England Sabbath was 
more rigidly kept than was the Jewish, with fewer 
privileges. By theological mathematics it was 
demonstrated that it began at sundown of Satur- 
day night, and ended with the departure of sun- 
light of the sacred Sabbath. The slavery of this 
Puritan institution was something awful, and it 
was planted in patches in the free Ohio woods. 
Of course the whole family were confined a large 



B. F. WADE. 35 

portion of the holy day in the nneeting-house of 
the Feeding Hills parish, and kept alive to the 
long sermons that reached sixteenthly and scven- 
tcentJily, as well as the interminable prayers, f 

The later mental growth of New England, under 
the stimulating and shattering effects of the then 
late war, was escaping the religious fetters as well, 
and taking on new forms of expression. In this 
the younger generation of Wades fully shared; 
and although in his early manhood Edward, un- 
der the influence of his affianced, sharing more 
fully the religious nature of their mother, became 
and remained a member of her church, the less 
impressible Frank lived and died outside of re- 
ligious communion of all forms. 

The daughter of one of the best educated men 
of his time. Mother Mary was zealous for the men- 
tal culture, especially, of her boys. In the time 
and region where her fortune cast her, their edu- 
cation was to be largely the fruit of her work. 
It is now difficult, even for those whose memories 
reach farthest back, to appreciate the utter pov- 
erty of the period of Frank's child- and boyhood, 
in the means of education. Literally, like the 
younger Weller, it was for him "a pursuit of 
knowledge under difficulties." In striking con- 
trast with the prodigality of our times in news- 
pa p e rs^^enodicaJs^ria^azii^^ 

f Dr. Ely, in the South meeting-house of Munson, east of Spring- 
field, consumed forty minutes for his main prayer. The writer fortu- 
nately was an infant when present, but his inherited experience of these 
seasons was vivid. 



36 B. F. WADE. 

form and variety, literature created for boys in his 
day had no existence. The mental air was cold 
and thin. Few had books, and they were mainly 
books of scholastic theology, of the quality of 
'Edwards on the Will,' Baxter's 'The Saints' 
Everlasting Rest,' his notes of the New Testa- 
ment, for which that upright Judge Jeffries placed 
him in the pillory ; Watt's dreary hymns, ' Watt's 
on the Mind,' long a college class-book ; ' Butler's 
Analogy,' which was also; 'Milton's Poems,' re- 
garded as the product of divine inspiration direct ; 
and Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress,' by the same 
high authority. Other light literature there was 
none. Of educational books, first and foremost 
was 'The New England Primer,'* containing the 
Shorter Catechism and abounding in couplets of 
a moral and elevating character. 

Noah Webster had already begun his reforma- 
tory raids on the common language. He pub- 
lished his' Grammatical Institute of the English 
Language ' a year or two after the marriage of 
James and Mary. It consisted of three parts. 
The first afterward became his famous spelling- 
book, the second his work on grammar, and the 
third was a widely used reading book — 'The III 
Part' — with rules of elocution, which many may 
still remember. It may be doubted whether 

* The first prize ever competed for in school by the writer was a 
' New England Primer ' in blue covers. He lost it by missing a single 
word in a long spelling lesson to a boy who missed every other word 
in it. That was the last of two long columns, and placed him at the 
head. 



B. F. WADE. 



37 



Mary, whose notions were of Harv^ird, would 
favor the innovator of Yale, but undoubtedly the 
Wade boys were fed with this Websterian pabu- 
lum. 

There were 'Dilworth's Speller,' 'Arithmetic' 
and 'Guide to the English Language,' all in exist- 
ence since 1761. There was also Pike's — Nicholas 
Pike's — 'Arithmetic,' long the standard in New 
England schools, published at Newburysport in 
1788 — a club for stupid heads, the delight of 
tough, fibrous brains. Lindley Murray was a 
Pennsylvania lawyer, merchant and author. His 
grammar, first published in 1795, soon became 
and long remained the standard in England as well 
as America. This was followed in 1799 by his 
' English. Reader. ' What elder or middle-aged 
man who did not use it? Later came the 'Ameri- 
can Preceptor' — a fresh, good book. 

The method of teaching of that time was mainly 
to leave the pupil entirely to himself. The works 
mentioned contained small or no explanation of 
their own rules, and few illustrations. They were 
to be memorized and reveal themselves when they 
would. Sometimes a ray of light was cast into 
the darkened mind, and the student was expected 
to follow out to the source of light, a clue — some- 
thing to pull himself up by. The work was his, 
the gain all his. The older edition of ' Adams' 
Arithmetic ' a book with large pages, had a con- 
cisely stated problem, one or more on each page, 
with blank space on which the solution, when 



38 B. F. WADE. 

reached, was to be written by the pupil. A boy 
carried a bit of paper and a pen to school. His 
teacher wrote an arithmetical problem upon it — 
**set him a sum " — and with or without a word of 
instruction, possibly a bare hint of what it was, 
the child was left to wrestle with it as he might. 

Teaching as an art, an applied science, was un- 
known in the common schools. The old statutes 
of Massachusetts, and the earlier of Ohio, required 
that an apprentice should be sent to school and 
taught so much arithmetic as included the four 
fundamental rules, and carry him to what was 
called "The rule of Three direct" — simple pro- 
portion. 

One thing was inevitable under this arid step- 
mother process. The stupid, dull-minded boys 
grew up dull, stupid men, with undeveloped ru- 
dimentary faculties, and remained such through 
life. Their minds were the dark resting places of 
the old, once popular superstitions and beliefs, 
while the quick, strong, eager, sinewy minds of 
Mary Upham Wade's boys were stimulated and 
strengthened to their very best. The difference 
between the naturally endowed would at once be 
increased and widened, and the better gifted 
would become as they were, an intellectual aristoc- 
racy. Nothing in our world is so essentially 
democratic as a real common education. Now 
men say there are no really great men, while the 
fact is the common — the average — is so much ele- 
vated that the difference is much less between it 



B. F. WADE. 39 

and the highest, so that the great men have 
seemed to disappear. 

From what we know of Benjamin FrankUn and 
Edward in their early manhood, whom we must 
be permitted to associate, we glance backward and 
reproduce Frank and Ned, the youngest and there- 
fore favorite boys of Mary and James Wade, run- 
ning freely among the Feeding Hills. Frank, the 
older, more adventurous, more silent ; Ned, tender, 
bright, joyous, the more hopeful, going with, sec- 
onding, standing by Frank in all the wild adven- 
tures of their boy life — in their studies, Frank the 
more enquiring and certain, Ned the more eager 
and docile, with his black, silky, curling, girl's hair 
twisting and falling over his dark brow, with flash- 
ing black eyes, full of fun and mischief; while 
Frank's burned with a steadier and more thought- 
ful, a mysterious and melancholy light, as if given 
to see things withheld from common men ; he the 
leader and mentor of the younger. His encounter, 
long tussle with and final conquest of ' Nicholas 
Pike,' in their growing years and minds, is historic. 
Few young men then or ever went through — clear 
through — 'Pike's Arithmetic' This he accom- 
plished, and conducted the younger and more 
aspiring boy along the same rugged way. So we 
are told that the elder had an algebra, that later 
generalization of arithmetic unknown to the 
ancients, whose problems it solves with the aid of 
symbols. We do not know whose work he had. 
He was nearly of the same age with Davies. It may 



40 B. F. IVADE. 

have been something from Descartes or the older 
mathematicians. His was a mind that would have 
delighted in the higher range of mathematics. It 
is easy to suppose that in the matter which came 
to his mother may have been a copy of ' Euclid's 
Elements,' in the old quarto form, with wide mar- 
gins, the word triangle always being expressed by 
little deltas. 

We know that Frank worked at home on the 
farm all the years from the time his child hands 
were useful till the family removed to Ohio, going 
to school two or three months each winter — his 
only aid from educational institutions. Self-taught, 
with his mother's and elder brother's aid, when 
above the reach of the New England schoolmaster, 
he worked on alone. The mental discipline of 
this process is very effective, the self-taught man 
always running the risk of being misled by not 
knowing who is the latest and best authority. He 
makes a book his own — blood, bone, muscle and 
sinew. 

James Wade was becoming aged. How many 
great and grave things occurred during the years of 
his sojourn in his native state ! Springfield was 
quite the centre of the Shay's rebellion of 1785-6 ; 
a soldier, he must have had some hand in one side 
of that. Then came the long wrangle over the 
growing troubles with the mother country, leading 
to the second long and bloody war, necessary, per- 
haps, to perfect our emancipation from unconscious 
colonial vassalage, and in which we fought our way 



B. F, WADE. 41 

to a place of respectability among the great 
nations of modern times. 

The Wades removed to Ohio in 1821. Of that 
removal, as of the general outlook of the younger 
members of the family, we shall have something 
to say hereafter, when we hope to take up and 
pursue the individual fortunes of Frank Wade 
more directly in his maturing manhood on the 
Western Reserve, where the ground is firmer under 
our feet, though the incidents of his life are still 
scanty and elusive. 



CHAPTER II. 

Planting Puritans in Ohio — South and North — Old Grant of Charles 
II. — Connecticut's Claim — Ashtabula — Andover — Pioneer Life — The 
Wade Brothers — Lake Erie — A Drover — Frank's Trip East — Visits 
his Eldest Brother — Works on the Erie Canal — Seward Celebrates 
him in the Senate — Returns Home — Studies Law — Law and 
Lawyers of that Time — ^James and Mary Pass Away. 

The final causes which shape the fortunes of 
individual men and the destinies of states are often 
the same. They are usually remote and obscure, 
their influence wholly unsuspected until declared 
by results. When they inspire men to the ex- 
ercise of courage, self-denial, enterprise, industry, 
and call into play the higher moral elements, lead 
men to a risk of all upon conviction, faith ; such 
causes lead to the planting of great states, 
great nations, great peoples. That nation is 
greatest that produces the greatest and most 
manly men, as these must constitute the essen- 
tially greatest nation. Such a result may not 
consciously be contemplated by the individuals 
instrumental in their production. Pursuing each 
his personal good by exalted means, they work 
out this as a logical conclusion. They struggle 
on the lines of the largest good. 



B. F. IVABE. 43 

Something has been said of the planting and 
training of the Puritan element in rugged New 
England. A word must be permitted of the 
planting of a new state west of the Alleghanies, 
between the lake and river, and the transplanting 
the modified Puritan to its stimulatine soil and 
atmosphere, for further development. 

In 1788 General Rufus Putnam organized the 
Massachusetts company, and secured the grant of 
a million acres of land on the Ohio, including the 
mouth of the Muskingum, a river flowing throuo-h 
a most favored region. There the company 
planted ancient Marietta and organized the county 
of Washington. 

About the same time John Cleves Symmes, a 
distinguished citizen af New Jersey, secured con- 
cessions of large tracts below, extending to the 
Miamis, valuable and rich lands, establishing him- 
self at North Bend, intending there to lay the 
foundation of a western metropolis. 

A little later came men from young Kentucky 
and secured the site of Cincinnati, which, for the 
time, they called Losantiville, though it fell largely 
under the dominant men of the east. 

The third Stuart king of England, in 1662, 
made a grant of American lands, sixty-two miles 
wide, extending from Narragansett bay westward 
to the ocean, which finally inured to thrifty Con- 
necticut. Her title was none of the best, but she 
so managed that after her sister states had relin- 
quinished their rival claims to the infant republic, 



44 



B. F. WADE. 



she was permitted to reserve from her grant to the 
United States, as her property, this breadth of 
territory extending west one hundred and twenty 
miles from the western Hne of Pennsylvania. This 
is the origin, territorial extent and geographical 
position of the famous Connecticut Western Re- 
serve—New Connecticut, as the natives of that 
state affectionately called it. The south line of 
the grant — the forty-first degree north — was its 
southern boundary. Her northern was washed 
by the envious lake, ever encroaching on the 
domain, the southern trend of whose coast line, 
running west, cut the ambitious little state out of 
quite half her acres. In her sweep across northern 
Pennsyh^ania she had planted, organized, and for 
a time governed her county of Westmoreland, 
whose representatives sat in her legislature, and 
she had a long and bloody feud with Pennsyl- 
vania, to whom she was finally obliged later to 
yield it. And though she had so much mote land 
still zvest, she was constrained to yield its sover- 
eignty to the United States, and it became for 
political purposes part of the Northwest Territory, 
and so of the state of Ohio. She soon sold the 
soil to the Connecticut Land company, composed 
of Massachusetts and Connecticut capitalists, who 
surveyed, divided their acquisition and dissolved, 
each at once seeking purchasers, which caused the 
first and greatest movement westward from New 
England. All this, save migration, occurred in 
the last years of the last century. , ^"^^-'^^B^^V^'^^'f 



B. F. WADE. 45 

These wide acquisitions on the borders of the 
state that was to be, show the appreciative judg- 
ment, as well as the enterprise, of the men of New 
England, of the importance of this new and farther 
west, a west that was to flee yet westward till the 
Occident itself should vanish. This northernmost 
acquisition was soon to become the home and 
training ground of our youth of the Feeding Hills' 
parish, whose best claim to notice is — it gave him 
birth and early nurture. 

Loosely speaking, the Reserve was distant six 
hundred miles, the whole extent of westward- 
stretching New York and farther-extending Penn- 
sylvania, both westwardly, covered by an inter- 
minable forest, traversed by numerous and gen- 
erally unbridged streams, and intersected by one 
considerable range of mountains to be crossed or 
gone around. At the beginning of the century 
the whole of the new domain was in the possession 
of the Indians, though their titles had been extin- 
guished by the process of battle and treaty. 

Immigration, left wholly to individual enter- 
prise, by unconscious selection, secures in the 
main very good, often the best men for that 
purpose. None but the hardy, resolute and en- 
terprising would undertake and endure the hazard 
and hardship. The most of Ohio was thus 
peopled, not only from New England, but from 
Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Tennessee. 
As might have been foreseen from her geographi- 



46 ■ B. F. WADE. 

cal position and extent, she would rapidly grow 
to power and importance in the republic. 

The leaders of New England and northeastern 
immigration to the southern border were men of 
wealth, high position and wide influence. They 
sought soldiers, adventurers, border men, hunters, 
men of broken fortunes, and, surrounded as they 
were by emigrants from the border southern 
states, the distinctively New England and north- 
ern traits and characteristics were soon lost ; and 
while they modified the manners and customs of 
the new communities, were in turn modified by 
their new associates and environs. Migration to 
the Connecticut lands was entirely spontaneous, 
without the aid of the states, or of the land com- 
pany, without the patronage of leaders or propri- 
etors, quite without individual concert. That 
region bordering the lake was from the first pre- 
ferred, though in the beginning not more accessi- 
ble. It may be that the unapprehended influence 
of that seeming law which requires the greater lines 
of transit over the western continent to be along 
the parallels of latitude, controlled this first con- 
siderable movement of the eastern people. How- 
ever that was, while New England early lost its 
distinctive influence in southern Ohio, it concen- 
trated and augmented it on the northern border, 
which was so much condensed Puritan New Eng- 
land. It still remains essentially New England. 
The immigrants thither were young, middle-aged 
husbandmen and their young wives and children, 



B. F. WADE. 47 

from the centres of the oldest EngHsh civihzation 
on the continent, with nothing warlike but the 
fading traditions of the revolution and older Indian 
wars, nor hunters, knowing nothing of woodcraft, 
or pioneer makeshifts. Peace-loving, law-abiding, 
from instinct and habit — frugal, long-headed, in- 
tellectual, hard workers, inventive, strongly im- 
bued with the religion of their ancestors, intensely 
Protestant, believing in the God of the Bible, the 
saving efficacy of comm.on schools in this life, and 
bent on bettering their earthly condition by slow, 
hard work. Beyond that, never thinking of any 
part they were to play in forming a new great 
state. Purely democratic in life and habit of 
thought, their organized townships would be little 
democracies. Of one of these the young Wades 
are to become citizens, help form and be formed 
by it, in the larger freedom of the thinly settled 
woods, most favorable to the development of in- 
dividual traits and tendencies, growing as the 
trees grow, and, like them, largely under the 
limits of natural law alone. 

The county of Ashtabula (Indian name of a 
creek) is the northeastern county of Ohio, border- 
ing Lake Erie and bounded east by Pennsylvania. 
It was organized in 1811, containing twenty-eight 
townships, of the five-mile square pattern of the 
Reserve, to which the exceptions, save those 
caused by the lake coast-line, are few. 

The township of Andover is one of the eastern 
range, lying along the Pennsylvania line, and the 



48 B. F. WADE. 

fifth going south from the lake, from which it is 
something over twenty miles distant. Its settle- 
ment began in 1805 or 1806. It was organized as 
a body politic in 18 19. This implied at least ten 
resident voters in its territory. The organization 
was after the Massachusetts pattern, with three 
trustees — the government proper, one or more 
justices of the peace and constables — old English ; 
supervisors of highways, overseers of the poor, 
viewers of fences, the erection of common school 
districts by metes and bounds, of which the 
residents were quasi corporators. All native or 
naturalized citizens, with the qualification of resi- 
dence, were freemen, and settled their township 
affairs at an annual meeting of all the voters, held 
then, and now, on the first Monday of April. 

In the history of Andover* I find it recorded : 
" In 1820 the three brothers Wade — Samuel Sid- 
ney, Theodore Leonard, and Charles H. — came 
into the township. The}^ were unmarried." The 
record says further of these young Wades, that in 
1821 "Theodore taught a three months' school 
in Madison (then in Geauga county, some dis- 
tance west) and received therefor six barrels of 
whiskey;" and that "Charles taught the same 
winter in Monroe (down toward the lake) and 
received five barrels." It may be stated that at 
that day the only disposition to be made of the 
surplus wheat and corn was to turn it into whiskey. 
Its capacity of being turned elsewhere rendered it 

* Williams' ' History of Ashtabula County,' p. 216. 



B. F. WADE. 49 

« 
one of the few merchantable products of that 

remote region, which then had no outlet, except 
across the woods southeastwardly to remote Pitts- 
burgh and the headwaters of the Ohio river. The 
history also says that the new Wade homestead 
was established on lots 38 and 48. What were 
distinguished as lots were quarter sections, a half 
mile square, containing one hundred and sixty 
acres of land each. This may answer for the 
beginning of current histor}^ as usually written. 
It will be remembered that James Wade, Jr., the 
eldest of the sons, early pushed off to the neigh- 
borhood of Albany, west of Springfield and not 
very remote, where he taught school, studied 
medicine, married, and came finally to be a phy- 
sician and surgeon of much local celebrity. 

It is quite certain that the first to reach Ohio 
were Charles H., his sister, Nancy Picket, and her 
husband, John. They left Springfield late in 
1819, and there is a legend that they walked much 
of the way, lingered in Pennsylvania and reached 
Andover in 1820, where they settled. The next 
was Samuel Sidney. Samuel Sidney Wade, second 
son, left Feeding Hills and made his way to his 
brothers, in eastern New York, where he remained 
for a time teaching school. He reached Andover 
about the time or a little later than did his brother 
and sister. He was accompanied by Theodore L. 
They joined the others. The exact date, whether 
in 18 19 or 1820, of this reunion is of little conse- 
quence to us. The three young men, brothers, 



50 B. F. WADE. 

these young and vigorous Wades, fell to the first 
and only work of pioneers — axmen — chopping 
down trees, building log cabins, tracing out trails 
and lines, and ''blazing trees" (hewing off the 
bark) to mark the way, and picking up the rudi- 
ments of woodcraft, this and school-teaching in 
the winter. Here in the woods, Samuel Sidney, 
the wit of the family — who ranked high for shrewd 
and pithy saymgs, esteemed quite the best con- 
versationalist — found sweet Emily Cadvvell, then 
two years with her father's family, Roger Cadwell, 
from Farmington, Connecticut, and wooed her in 
such fashion that they were married in September, 
1821.* He it was who "took up" the land in 
the east part of this Andover of the west, and 
built there a new homestead, of which the young 
bride became the mistress. 

It must have been in the fall of 1821 that the 
Wade brothers fitted out a team and sent John 
Picket to Massachusetts for the residue of the 
family — James and Mary Upham, Frank and 
Ned, who reached the cabin in the woods at the 
near approach of winter, now sixty-five years 
ago. 

How rudimentary everything was — a little 
framed school house at the centre, built the year 
before ; an old-fashioned, small-stoned grist-mill, 
picked from native boulders ; a little, new, slow- 

* They became the parents of Judge E. C. Wade of Jefferson, Ohio, 
and she was a sister of the later born Hon. Darius Cadwell of Cleve- 
land. 



B. F. WADE. 51 

going saw-mill, on a forest stream that dried up 
when the woods were cut away ; trails and wind- 
ing, scarcely trodden roads and forest paths, 
through the endless woods, with here and there a 
small opening, a rude log cabin, a little, stumpy, 
blackened clearing, and for the rest, woods — trees 
and woods. There was a court house and a hamlet 
at Jefferson, a larger village near the mouth of the 
Ashtabula creek. Buffalo still showed signs of the 
late war, and then the solitary shore of the lonely 
lake, a waste of desert water. There was a little 
village on the Grande river west, and a rude, strag- 
gling town of six hundred inhabitants at the 
mouth of the Cuyahoga. The lake had a single 
steamer launched that season, called Walk-in-the- 
Water, after the old Wyandot chief, who deserted 
Proctor the day before the battle of the Thames ; 
that and four or five small craft, without a harbor 
or barely an accessible creek, on the whole south- 
ern lake coast. The great state of the near future 
was a wide, dim outline, hiding in the shadows of 
its scarcely broken forests, still echoing with the 
cries and din of savage warfare — its half million of 
pioneers. Columbus, a straggling, muddy village 
on the Scioto, had been but five years the capital 
when Frank Wade, this lithe young descendant of 
the Puritans, strode into the woods of her north- 
eastern border, as unconscious of what this coming 
portended to him as of the future greatness of the 
infant state three years his junior. He was then 
twenty-one years of age, full American height, 



52 B. F. WADE. 

broad, heavy shouldered, slender in the loin, well 
limbed, straight and supple, manly featured, to 
whom Jupiter had already sent a beard ; dark 
eyed, and bearing his head well up with uncon- 
scious dignity, wholly unassuming, frank, courage- 
ous, virile manliness early characterized his bear- 
ing, with a mind well developed, quick, observing, 
alive to all that was about him, he came, as did 
the other youths of the East, to war with the for- 
ests, reduce the earth to the purposes of the 
husbandman and become a tiller of its fresh, vigor- 
ous soil ; less aspiring than his younger brother, 
this was known to be his purpose. His first study 
was the wonderful forest, not the lush gigantic 
tangled growth of the sub-tropical, humid regions 
of the south, but the open, clean, tall, large, splen- 
did product of the strong soils in that northern 
temperate belt, stretching from the Hudson west- 
ward to the treeless plains, composed of nearly 
every variety of deciduous trees, with but a slight 
sprinkle here and there of cotnfers. This was 
particularly the character of the forest lying along 
the southern border of the lake, extending indefi- 
nitely southward and westward. 

The younger Wades had already become accus- 
tomed to the woods. They, nor no men, had ever 
seen a finer growth of splendid forest than shaded 
the wide sloping plains and hillsides of the Western 
Reserve. 

It is curious, the effect of a sojourn in the 
forest upon civilized men. All revert more or 



B. F. WADE. 



53 



less toward primitive conditions — toward sav- 
agery. It is essential to existence there, where 
everything is taken first hand fi-om the woods, the 
waters and the soil itself. Some became hunters 
in a day, some instinctively grasp the lore of w^ood- 
craft, while the majority remain obstinate citizens, 
to whom the forest is a prison whose walls they 
flee or labor to destroy. 

Frank early became, and always remained, an 
expert rifle shot. I never heard that he was a 
hunter or greatly a woodsman ; he was an observer, 
a student, and alive to impressions. From won- 
dering at the individual trees, wondering at the 
trees in grand masses, he passed to studying their 
peculiarities and economic values. He came to 
know something of the forest, the woods as a whole; 
came to appreciate it as the realm, the world of 
nature, who wrote a common character upon all 
her children that found standing room and homes 
in its thickets and glades. Wild, men call it, 
from insect and bird to the elk and Indian. Wild, 
gamey, the hunters and pioneers said of the flavor 
of its meats and fruits. Men living long in it 
themselves become more or less possessed of its 
subtle, elusive, yet pervasive spirit. 

The latest arrived took up their abode with the 
newly married Samuel and Emily, and so the 
family were reunited. The Pickets were near, the 
Brigdens and Bettises soon came, and save the 
long absent James, jr., the Wades were all to- 
gether again. Three of the five young men taught 



54 B. F. WADE. 

school that winter. Those at home kept the fire 
agoing, ''chopped down browse "maple, elm, 
beech and basswood for the cow and oxen. As 
the spring approached five axes were helved and 
ground, and five stalwart young choppers assailed 
the forest. A cornfield must be planted in May. 
From eight to ten days a single fairly good axman 
required to fell and cut into proper lengths the 
standing trees of an acre of land and pile up the 
small limbs and brush for the first burning. 
What a falling of trees and resounding of axes 
as these five youths Waded into the woods. Then 
came sugar making, and the pigeons, the suckers 
and mullet, the pike and other lake fish up the 
undammed creeks. In mid April the newly cut 
and piled brush in the chopping, under the sun, 
winds and rains, would burn, and the " fallow" — the 
chopping — was fired. The winds arose, and there 
was a great conflagration — which darkened the sky 
— and the fragrance of burning leaves was on the 
air. Then, with a specially trained yoke of oxen — 
Bright and Brown, the same with shoes and work- 
ing in breeching, which drew the wagon from the 
Feeding Hills the autumn before ; the young men, 
armed with " iron wood " handspikes, strong, 
hardy and lithe, piled up and burnt the already 
blackened tree trunks, and the denuded, 
smirched, virgin earth was given to her husband- 
man. The vigor of her response to the young 
New Englanders, was a wonder to them. What- 
ever they entrusted to her she returned an hundred 



B. F. WADE. 55 

fold, their plantings of one day putting forth their 
blades almost on the next. What lush growths 
of rank and fragrant herbage on the wide slopes of 
the woods and along the pleasant watercourses, 
the early season brought ; even the uplands were 
clothed in deep verdure as a savanna. What 
myriads of new and strange flowers, what a world 
of song birds, and then the wild small fruits as the 
summer deepened. There were the plum bottoms, 
raspberries, crabapples, in endless profusion, and 
the fragrance of wild thyme and oxbalm. Through 
the summer, there was more chopping and clearing 
for wheat. Then the rich, ripe autumn and the 
splendor of the gorgeous forest, with the profusion 
of nuts. Winter came with more school teaching, 
and so as the seasons came and went. They were 
much alike. The fields grew, the woods receded; 
rich grasses clothed the earth, fruit trees and 
shrubs took the places of the wilder plantings of 
nature, which she in turn fostered with the same 
care. 

What a household was that — these five young 
Wades — the eldest with his bride-wife ; James al- 
ready venerable, telling his stories of the old war, 
his memory failing; Mary, grown a little stout, 
with her square, intellectual brow, bright eyes, 
white hair, her softened, sweet face and winnowed 
wisdom, still the head and centre; the young wife 
ruling by the divine right of blessed womanhood, 
surrounded by these youths taught by Mother 
Mary to reverence and cherish womanhood. Some- 



56 B. F. WADE. 

thing of this old-time, rare circle has been told 
me. 

These five vigorous, healthy, intellectual, witty 
and fairly cultivated young men, emulous, hungry 
for mental food, eager, searching for everything 
within reach, reading every book that any of their 
ten hands could be laid upon, and discussing it as 
they read, and so of everything. The Cleveland 
Herald was established in 1819, the Painesville Tel- 
egi-aph in 1821. One or both of these they secured 
with something from the east. A joyous, gay-tem- 
pered, light-hearted, laughing, joking, rollicking 
band of brothers as ever migrated into the western 
woods ; kindly doing everything that came to their 
hands ; helping and being helped, as was the then 
golden rule of the pioneers ; widely known, widely 
respected and loved. What a power such a band 
is ; how helpful to each other. 

Two years — two cherished years of this life, hard, 
and in many ways stinted, in a cold, thin atmos- 
phere of toil and self-denial, yet robust, sinewy; 
free, pure, active, unselfish, healthful, Frank 
Wade's first of pupilage and acclimation in the life 
and fitting for his future duties — two years, and he 
turned from that book of the lessons, a little with 
the uncertainty of one who has not yet seen his 
way to the thing he wants, or is in doubt as to the 
thing itself He would not be an Ohio farmer. 
For many, many waiting years the young com- 
munities were without markets or outlets. The 
lake was useless. The Erie canal was yet incom- 



B. F. WADE. 57 

plete, and notwithstanding the thrift and enterprise 
of the people, the settlements languished, stood 
still, the years were moveless ; values of all pro- 
ducts disappeared;* money was not; the silver 
coins were cut to fractions, and the utmost econ- 
omy was necessary to secure enough to pay the 
moderate yearly taxes and buy salt and leather. 
Black salts commanded cash at Pittsburgh. Whis- 
key has been mentioned. The wide and rich 
forest pasturage made the raising of cattle easy. 
These could be driven eastward to a market. Early 
this was an extensive business on the Reserve. 
Enterprising men made it a calling. It was full 
of risk, laborious, required skill and enterprise. 
The larger merchant made it a means of purchase 
and sale. He supplied his customers on long cred- 
its and received cattle in payment, sometimes 
paying a small part in cash. Philadelphia was the 
great eastern market where the droves were sold 
and the proceeds invested in goods. New York 
was no market. Boston was oftener resorted to 
for commercial purposes. The purchases were 
herded and driven "over the mountains" through 
Pennsylvania, taking five or six weeks to make the 
transit. Later, sheep and swine were in like 
manner disposed of. 

In the autumn of 1823, Frank Wade hired him- 

*My father's noble pair of oxen were sold for forty dollars, part cash_ 
A fine mare for thirty dollars. He sold wheat for thirty-five and forty 
cents per bushel, receiving "store pay. " He paid ten dollars for a 
barrel of salt and thirty-five cents a yard for poor domestic cotton. A 
man often worked a day for a yard of cotton cloth. 



58 B. F. WADE. 

self to a drover, and aided him in driving a herd 
"over the mountains" to Philadelphia. He 
probably walked a large part of the distance, 
and received eight, ten or twelve dollars — his 
personal expenses paid. The name of his em- 
ployer is lost, and so escaped the one chance of 
immortality. From Philadelphia he made his way 
to Albany and joined his brother, Doctor James. 
He spent two years in the neighborhood — two 
years teaching school, and as is said, he also under- 
took the study of medicine under his brother's tu- 
ition. He could never have more than toyed \\'\\\\ 
the text-books, his reading making no show in his 
after mental equipment, as it would had he ever 
seriously undertaken it. It is certain that during 
this time he resorted to the line of the great canal 
in the course of construction, and worked for a 
time with pick and shovel and barrow with the 
common laborers, for means to carry himself for- 
ward, receiving, probably, not exceeding forty-five 
or fifty cents per day. Had any one then told the 
brave, independent youth that he was destined to 
hear this incident of his life related in the senate 
of the United States, and himself spoken of as one 
of the most talented members of that body, by the 
foremost statesman of his time, he would have re- 
garded it as a prophecy too silly for even derision.* 

♦Speaking of the great work and of the foreigners who performed it, 
WiUiam H. Seward said in the senate : ' ' Whence came the labor that 
performed that work? I know but one American citizen who worked 
with spade and wheelbarrow upon tho.'"e works. Doubtless there are 



B. F. WADE. 59 

Little as we know of these two years, we know 
they were not lost. Nothing ever is in the lives 
of such men. They may not have been the most 
helpful — they were not without their use. He 
may have been slow in growth and development ; 
I am inclined to think he was, and his mind got 
the utmost help from all discipline. 

The great waterway was commenced in 1817, 
was completed in the autumn of 1825, and the re- 
gal Clinton made his progress in a famous barge 
from Buffalo to tide water, through it, at the close 
of that season. Unquestionably young Wade re- 
turned home upon it by way of the lake. Of all 
the west the Reserve was the first to be vivified 
by the new life it slowly kindled in all the north. 

Frank returned to find his youngest brother, 
Edward — the most aspiring of all the brothers, a 
law student in the office of Messrs. Whittlesey & 
Newton, at Canfield, now Mahoning county, toward 
the south line of the Reserve, then the great private 
law school of northern Ohio. This ingenious youth, 
though full of fun and fancies, nevertheless had a 
turn for mathematics, and had composed and writ- 
ten a new arithmetic, which occupied his thought 
and spare time for a year or two. When com- 
pleted, and he was studying the means of publica- 
tion, a brother-in-law's house, where it was depos- 
ited, was burnt, and it was consumed. It was said 

many others, but I know but one, and he, I am glad to say, is a mem- 
ber on this floor — Mr. Wade of Ohio — and one of the most talented 
senators. 



6o B. F. WADE. 

he went about dejectedly for a day or two, and then 
announced his determination to become a lawyer, 
and that soon after, with his scant wardrobe and 
six dollars in his pocket, he made his way to Can- 
field, was received, and at once entered upon his 
novitiate to the law. This must have been in 1824 
— year memorable in American annals for the first 
great contest between the second Adams and Gen- 
eral Jackson for the Presidency, in which were 
sown the seeds of mischiefs innumerable. 

In that day the profession of the law was, if any- 
thing, more exclusive and exalted than any other 
calling in America. Its members were limited, 
and they jealously guarded all the avenues of en- 
trance to its ranks and priveleges, then wholly 
committed to their keeping. They received as 
students and educated the carefully selected few, 
whom they finally admitted to this favored circle. 
Always dressed with care, dignified and distant in 
manners, associating socially with none but the 
conceded select, when lines and classes were stilt 
well marked, as a body, a profession, the members 
always remembered and exacted their collective 
and inividual dues. It was long regarded as arro- 
gant in the average young man to aspire to the 
honors of the bar. Wealth and education could 
not always find the way to it. The ministry and 
medicine were comparatively free. To be received 
into a law office as a full student, at once marked 
a young man and set him apart. It required 
courage and enterprise on his pari to face this 



B. F. WADE. 6 1 

aristocratic set, meet their exactions and steadily 
contemplate the awful presence of the court itself. 
The idea of assaulting and winning his way into 
this favored profession was Ned Wade's own. 
Who vouched for him, if voucher he had, is now 
unknown. He was aspiring, had faith and capacity 
for work, and when Frank returned from Albany 
he was a well established and favorite student. 

Elisha Whittlesey was then fairly among the 
three or four great lawyers in his section of the 
state, and had just entered upon his long, distin- 
guished and very valuable career in the national 
house of representatives. Eben Newton, younger, 
was in the opening of a long and exceptionally 
brilliant course at the bar, in the Ohio senate and 
congress. The firm ranked with the best in the 
west, and educated as many able lawyers as ever 
graduated from any law office in Ohio. The 
senior was a gentleman of the old school, had 
served with distinction in the late war, was the 
centre of an exceptionally exclusive circle, the 
olden Canfield, where was much of wealth and 
pretension. There resided the Whittleseys, Wads- 
worths, Churches, the Canfields and others. Ned 
had a modest youth's confidence in himself, had 
boundless faith in his brother Frank. He quite 
appreciated his strong, sinewy mind, his capacity 
and will for work. Just what line of argument 
he pursued we know not. Upon his return he 
besought him so earnestly to enter upon the study 
of the law, that through his efforts Frank, ere 



62 B. F. WADE. 

winter, was an accepted student in the office of 
Whittlesey & Newton.* He was then twenty-five 
years old, with a mind fairly unfolded, a good age 
to enter upon the acquirement of the rudiments 
of the law, by no means an exact science, and even 
at this day of inquiry and criticism, little of its 
philosophy has been written. While it demands 
long and arduous mental labor to master its nu- 
merous and often artificial rules, and the grounds 
and reasons upon which they depended, it still 
has a considerable element of apprenticeship, 
which those who undertake the law, toward even 
early middle life, rarely acquire and become adepts 
in. Though slenderly equipped by scholarship, 
Mr. Wade in many respects was admirably fitted, 
not only to acquire, master, the theories of Eng- 
lish common law, but he had the courage, will 
power, the capacity for long, continuous, persist- 
ent work, mental and physical, without which the 
higher positions of the profession never were at- 
tained, and with which no man ever yet failed at 
the bar. The curious layman who glances around 
the book crusted walls of a good workin^j law 
library, wonders if a man must know all they con- 
tain. Not at all. He is a good lawyer who knows 
where to find what law he wants at a given time. 
The student is not asked to master more than ten 
or twelve volumes, purely elementary, the ac- 
cepted formulas of the law, arranged under heads, 
as expounded and enforced by the courts at West- 

*Edward Wade was mv authority for this statement. 



B. F. WADE. 63 

minster, Washington, New York, Boston, Balti- 
more — the courts of the last resort, among the 
various EngHsh speaking nations and states. 

The well selected library of that time would 
seem meager and poor to the richer surrounded 
lawyer of our day. Blackstone's still incompar- 
able work, first given to the public in 1765, of 
course these leading lawyers had ; and the first of 
Joseph Chettys, which still maintain their place. 
Chancellor Kent's first volume was not published 
till 1826, nor was there any important American 
work. For the rest, there were Coke and Fearne 
and Fonblanque, Plowden and Powel ; Bacon — 
not him of St. Albans and Verulam ; Bacon's 
abridgement, in ten huge, dull volumes ; Comyn's 
digest ; a stately row of Hargrave's state trials, 
old folios, and Espinasse, and hardest of books of 
legal problems ; Buller's nisi prms, where complex 
cases were condensed into five lines, and a half 
score to the page. For the law of crimes there 
were Hale and East and Hawkins. Above all 
and over all, and " blessed forever," there stood a 
huge folio — 'Jacob's Law Dictionary' — good old 
Father Jacob, who required a good deal of recon- 
dite learning to consult and understand, but who, 
in a last push, in that strange old land of mediae- 
val scholasticism and hidden meanings, of bad 
law Latin and worse law French, where solid 
black letter cast a mystic gloom over the page, 
never did fail the bewildered, wearied student. 

It would be interesting to note the early steps 



64 B. F. WADE. 

of the plucky, sinewy mind of Frank, with its 
inherited tendencies, in this new field. How he 
scoffed and fought everything ! What battles 
royal he had with the already indoctrinated 
Edward, till by degrees the spirit and life, the 
reason and light — the last sometimes a little 
lurid and sometimes a little ghostly, yet always 
steady — came to be apprehended and appre- 
ciated as the weird, quaint spirit of the realm 
came to possess him. Its sturdy efforts to 
reach a practical right, sometimes failing through 
its own subtleties, sometimes losing its true 
spirit in its own dead and empty names, yet 
always reviving^ and coming forth strong and vig- 
orous for the rights of the individual man, and 
effectively interposing to shield and protect him 
from the oppression of the crown, which, while 
the law presumed it could do no wrong, betrayed a 
vicious tendency to do no right. No vigorous, 
ingenuous mind can explore the law and appre- 
hend the historic significance of its English career, 
without cherishing a profound veneration for habeas 
corpus and trial by jury. Rapidly the strong, primi- 
tive mind of the young man — a mind that boldly 
questioned all things, which took nothing second- 
hand, which, when deepest imbued with the color 
of the law, still retained its native apprehension 
of the white light, in which a healthful intellect 
sees all things — became truly studious of the com- 
mon law — that distilled product of so many gener- 
ations of the strongest and most practical of the 



B. F. WADE. 65 

minds of men, compelled to deal with, adjust and 
settle the innumerable differences of men, arising 
in their endless commerce with human property, 
its acquisition, transference and transmission, each 
generation accepting the results of its predeces- 
sors, working them over, broadening, deepening, 
correcting, limiting, modifying and improving the 
whole, as nevv^ and better lights arose, new wants 
arose, and farther general human progress at- 
tained — that infinitely greater mass of law, not 
originating in acts of parliament, of congress and 
state legislatures ; older and wiser, the atmosphere 
in which they are created, underlying, overarching, 
surrounding all statutes, the background against 
which they are drawn, by the rules of which the 
meaning of all enacted law is ascertained, adjudged 
and enforced. An admirable mental training say 
the doubting, jealous laymen, for a lawyer, but its 
tendency is to narrow the intellect and render it 
less competent to deal with broad subjects and 
large interests. Let these remember that the 
broadest minded statesmen of America, from 
Hamilton to Webster and Clay, from these to 
Lincoln, Seward and Garfield, were all thoroughly 
learned and trained common lawyers. 

The statutes of Ohio required two years of dili- 
gent, preparatory study ere examination for ad- 
mission to the bar. 

The life of a real law student is narrow, absorb- 
ing, intense, exclusive and most uneventful. He 
has appreciated its importance to himself and cor- 



66 B. F. WADE. 

rectly apprehended the demands of his future pro- 
fession. Shy, silent and retiring, the allurements 
of society, the charm of outdoor life, the roar and 
clamor of the great outer world, cease to distract 
him. Let no young man who does not seriously 
intend the law as his life work, waste his time in 
dwaddling over books in orthodox sheep, and 
kindred vices, for vices to him they will be. He 
will not dip deep enough to ensure useful mental dis- 
cipline. He will secure just law enough to mislead 
himself and those who trust in him. He will never 
know how little he does know, small as it is certain 
to be. 

The young Wades made the law theirs — made 
themselves over to it — imbibed its spirit and ac- 
quired the capacity to become real lawyers. There 
is now scarcely a legend of their student days. 
There used to be many traditions of the brothers 
about the older Canfield, particularly of Frank, 
who impressed all men. I have tried in vain to 
find how he impressed women. Shy of women, 
diffident of pcnver to please, he seems to have 
never sought the society of ladies. I am sorry for 
that. His decided ways, pithy sayings, original 
views of men and things, his well marked individ- 
uality, left a flavor of his presence that took many 
years and three generations to dissipate. Two 
years, then he was to face the not apprehended 
examination, beyond which, gray and misty, was 
the great world of the unknown. Yet ere the 
trial for admission, James, the father, and Mary, 



B. F. WADE. 67 

the mother, were laid to rest in the shadow of the 
western forest. 

James Wade, the elder, was seventy-one at the 
time of the westward migration. His vigor was 
in the decline. He was boyishly eager to start 
for its west. No land since that first paradise of 
the Occident has ever been made more alluring by 
stories of returned explorers than that favored 
region. Mary Upham, a little stouter, never very 
tall, retained her full mental vigor and was still 
strong of limb. She knew she was going forever 
from home into a literal wilderness. Quietly and 
silently she bade adieu to the small, well-kept 
mounds over baby Nancy and baby Charles, lin- 
gered about the spring and in one or two pleasant 
nooks in the garden ; went out to the orchard, 
took a final look off from a near summit, with her 
own hand closed the outside door, and took her 
place by her impatient husband's side, as so many 
women had done and would do. Bravely, when 
they started, she refused to turn her eyes back- 
ward. They had looked their last on what she 
loved of that earth, and steadily and cheerfully she 
set them westward. Nancy and Sidney and Theo- 
dore and Charles were there. James was weary 
before they reached James junior's, where they 
lingered. The full significance of the enterprise 
to him began to reveal itself when they again 
moved on the returnless journey. Very well he 
endured to^ Buffalo. Further lay the Cattaragus 
swamos and woods. Where were the boys going, 



68 B. F. WADE. 

and into what ? Beyond, on the wave-beaten beach 
of the soHtary lake, were days to him of reverie 
and half dream. The endless waste of water, the 
boundless border of trees. He grew weary of the 
monotony of the woods — all woods. Such trees 
he had never seen. He soon lost the power to 
admire and wonder at them. They wearied and 
then wore him. The endless level plain became 
unendurable. It was quite all the brave, tender 
Mary could do to keep him up. All the way and 
from the first he deluded himself Ohio-Andover 
was a place dreadfully level, but there were cleared 
fields, pleasant, grassy meadows, white houses, 
and lazy, fat cattle, a place where he could see 
through and out of the woods. Yet the further 
they went the more endless seemed the everlast- 
ing forest. Finally the wagon stopped beside a 
rude cabin, with the tall, great trees thick about 
it. There, tripped out to him comely, sweet-faced 
wife Emily, and hero were Sidney and Theodore 
and Charles — what were they all doing here in the 
woods? Then it came to the old man that this 
was the final end, this was Ohio-Andover, home. 
He went into the woods too late ; children never 
comprehend how cruel they are to attempt to 
transplant an old man. It is hardest on him ; 
a woman is more transferable. He never took 
root in the new, strange soil. 

The strong, fresh, abounding life, so inspiring 
and invigorating to the young, the middle-aged, 
never thrilled his shrunken veins? He was recon- 



B. F. WADE. 69 

ciled, passive, even cheerful, a little querulous, 
and went pottering about, resumed the stories of 
his early advetures whenever anyone would listen, 
then grew forgetful and told the same thing over 
and over to the same person, as a thing he never 
had heard before. He would sit watching the 
circling shadows of the trees as the sun cast them 
over the low cabin. As time wore on and the 
woods receded, came the natural wish to return to 
the Feeding Hills. He dreamed of it, planned 
the journey, the time it would take, the money it 
would cost, the places where they would put up 
for the night. He finally thought he and Mary 
would start and go alone — would walk it — and she 
indulged the idea. As she made no preparations 
for the journey, he concluded to go alone, and 
put together a few things and set times to go, and 
finally it was a source of disquiet to faithful Mary 
fearing he would start away alone, on a pilgrimage 
to the old home, and she watched and was on 
guard. 

Mary's self, so bright, cheerful, patient and 
hitherto so strong and hopeful for the rest, took 
the new, strange life pleasantly. The winter of 
i825-"26 was severe. It was too much for her. 
It became apparent to all save James that unless 
the warm weather came early and genially, she 
would see none but the early flowers in bloom, 
would never hear her favorite, the hermit thrush, 
at twilight in the near wood again. She died 
April 10, 1826. 



70 B. F. WADE. 

James had now no wish to go back to Massa- 
chusetts. He was only eager to follow Mary. 
She had not long to wait for him, and he set out 
on the same way, the eternally old road, May 9, 
following. In age, death does not long divide the 
reallv married. 



CHAPTER III. 

Admitted to the Bar.— Jefferson. — The Courts.— Trial by Jury. — Helps 
of the Lawyer. — Reports of that Time. — First Case. — Practice. — 
Difficulties in Speaking. — Overcomes Them.— J. R. Giddings. — 
Giddings and Wade. — Personal Appearance. — Manners. — Rudeness 
of Speech. — Religion. — Personal Popularity. — Many Young Imi- 
tators. — Financial Disaster of 1837. — General Ruin. — Wade and 
Ranney. 

Frank Wade, with his brother, was admitted 
to the bar late in the summer of 1827, at a term 
of the supreme court, held at Jefferson, the seat 
of Ashtabula county. That then, as now, was 
the highest court in the state, and could alone 
admit applicants to the bar. It was originally an 
** ambulatory court," always "on the circuit." It 
had to hold one term in each of the ever-increasing 
number of counties. Two of the three judges 
constituted a quorum. They exercised the right 
of reserving cases for a full bench — court in banco — 
the origin of the court as it now exists. The 
earlier of Hammond's 'Ohio Reports' (first of 
the state) contain cases decided on the circuit and 
in banco. The judges were paid a thousand dol- 
lars a year, were allowed nothing for traveling 
expenses, and were expected to visit every county- 



72 B. F. WADE. 

seat each twelvemonth, and did when accessible. 
A part of the northwest at times could not be 
reached.* A history of the early jurisprudence 
of the state would be in order and interesting. 
Maugre the meagre salaries, Ohio was fortunate 
in its supreme judges — Pease, Tod, Huntington, 
Hitchcock, Sherman, Grimkie, Wood, Lane, and 
others. They established its jurisprudence on 
very enduring foundations. Few of their cases 
have been shaken. The court had appellate and 
jurisdiction in error from the common pleas — the 
only other court of record. It also had a jury, 
and might and did try cases of murder directly. 
The later attempts to relieve suitors by increas- 
ing the number of courts is a weak device. It 
but makes endless the already wearying way of 
the law. 

Admission to the bar was then not a mere mat- 
ter of form. The examinations were thorough 
and searching — often conducted by the judges 
themselves. No standing conundrums were pro- 
posed, as "the rule in Shelly's case."f It is said 
that Frank Wade had never been in a court of 
record, had never seen a supreme judge, until 
called to the ordeal of his examination, which we 
know the Wades successfully passed. There is 

*Judge Peter Hitchcock used to drive a sorrel horse in a wooden, 
springed, light wagon, painted yellow, annually over the state for many 
years. 

+ It is one of the curiosities of the older law that while this famous 
rule is preserved as one of judgment, the case itself is lost, was never 
reported. 



B. F. WADE. 73 

no profession so uncertain as the law. Of all who 
study it, twenty per cent, is a fair estimate of 
those who succeed. Lawyers are grown rather 
than made. They are never born. No gifts can 
make a lawyer. It is largely the youth's own 
work. Will and staying power — years, many of 
them, are necessary — natural aptitude, talent, 
genius, are great helps; industry, patience and 
time will do more. In no other calling can men 
so little forecast results, and I may say in no other 
are the final results of the mere lawyer more un- 
satisfactory. He may sit and contemplate the 
leathern backs of his two or three thousand law 
books, and for the rest, innumerable pigeon holes, 
filled with yellow papers, tokens of work and 
woes innumerable.* 

Frank Wade was now an attorney and coun- 
selor at law, and solicitor in chancery. He has 
taken the oath of office, his name recorded on the 
then small roll of men, some of whom are to be 
honorably distinguished, and he has the clerk's 
certificate of the fact bearing the broad seal of the 
supreme court of the state of Ohio. It was very 
unusual then for a farmer's boy to attempt to 
break away, escape to a profession, most of all 
the law. He is always subjected to criticism 
more or less sharp. **He feels above farmer's 
work, he wants to wear broadcloth every day." 
" He's a lazy chap." *' He'll never come to any- 

* These are the reflections of the weary old lawyer at the close, not 
the anticipations of \\\^ young barrister at the beginning 



74 B. F. WADE. 

thing," and more of that sort. The law was sup- 
posed to open to the fortunately fated, an easy road 
to riches, honor, leisure. The average mind has no 
conception of the labor of those to whom labor 
comes, of the wearying soul anguish of those to 
whom it does not. In Ashtabula at that time, 
there had been but one or two instances of young 
men who had studied law. Young Joshua R. 
Giddings had been admitted in 182 1. He was 
looked upon as a rarely exceptional young man. 
It was not likely these Wade boys — two of them 
— would prove to be of the same order. Of the 
two, less was expected of the more silent, thought- 
ful elder. So wise is the world. Frank heard 
that he was talked about when he went off with 
the drover, and more when he went with Ned to 
Can field. All that was past. He was safely at 
the bar. He felt he had the pith in him. It must 
now work to the surface and show itself to the 
world. 

The usually perplexing problem with the young 
lawyer is where to plant himself He often sup- 
poses that somewhere is a place — an opening — 
yearning for him. He sometimes spends months 
in looking for it. I never knew one of these young 
men to find it. They find all the places taken, all 
the openings filled. In the nature of things, they 
always are. I like better the answer of the young 
man who, in reply to the question of a lawyer in 
a western town, "Are you looking for an open- 
ing?" said: '*No. I am looking for a place to 



B. F. WADE. 75 

make one.'' For the Wades there was small choice. 
They were west. No one thought of going east, 
and few south. At about the geographical centre 
of broad Ashtabula was the township of Jefferson. 
The region was monotonously level. The earth 
at the centre had managed to lift itself by an im- 
perceptible swell, a foot or two, and here in 1811 
the commissioners of the county established the 
county-seat. No one now can form an accurate 
idea of the muddy, sodden little town, largely of 
log buildings, when the young Wades went there 
for examination. The woods were very near, 
walling it in all round. They still covered the 
whole country, with stumpy and muddy roads 
through them leading to it; the wide swampy 
lands were traversed on log-ways of sections of 
trees twelve or eighteen inches through, laid side 
by side, sometimes for miles in extent. Here 
the court of common pleas, consisting of a presi- 
ident-judge — a lawyer elected as were the supreme 
judges, by the legislature— and three associates, 
laymen, sat three times a year. It had universal 
jurisdiction, civil, criminal and probate ; also 
licensed public houses, then called taverns, as was 
the better old English way. It also had appellate 
jurisdiction, and in error, in all cases arising 
before justices of the peace, who collectively dis- 
pose of infinitely a larger number of cases, and 
settle the rights to a larger sum total, than do 
the courts of record. Like all new communities, 
the pioneers of the Western Reserve were litigious. 



76 B. F. WADE. 

The causes of their suits and the sums involved 
would throw a curious light on their character and 
time. To go to a lawsuit between others, above 
all go to court at Jefferson, Warren or Chardon, 
was a great thing. To be called as a juror gave a 
man importance. He not only heard the lawyers, 
they talked to him. He was a part of the tribu- 
nal ; ever afterward a man of note in his neigh- 
borhood. The young advocate, whether in the 
log house of the magistrate or the larger forum of 
the common pleas, was sure of a large and very 
appreciative audience, than which nothing gives 
so much interest and consequence to a trial and 
the man conducting it. Trial by jury is incident- 
ally valuable, as it so largely adds interest and im- 
portance to the ordinary administration of law. 
Contrast the usual nisi prins courts, with the 
supreme court of the United States in session. 
Note the attentive throngs, the presence of re- 
porters in the one; the emptiness and sleepy 
silence of the other. Day by day, in the capitol, 
the third coordinate department of the govern- 
ment discharges its high and sacred functions 
without a solitary spectator. At the best a casual 
visitor flits in, with, perhaps, a lady. A minute 
satisfies their curiosity, and they glide away. The 
gravest cases are heard and decided in the pres- 
ence of counsel and the officers and pages of the 
court only. The philosophy of the history of 
a free people may be largely drawn from its legis- 



B. F. WADE. 77 

lation, its character and bent, its genius from its 
litigation — its crimes even. 

For aids in practice the young Wades had Tidd 
and Chitty. The Ohio legislature and the courts 
had secured for them about the best system of 
procedure the common law was capable of — 
simple, practical, safe. The gains by the later 
code were of doubtful value. Its good was nearly 
all due to the modified English practice. Its bad 
was its own, abundant, and due to the tendency 
of the later years for mere detail, which mars alike 
constitutions and statutes — a weak love for an- 
alysis, which has rendered trials interminable and 
multiplied sub-issues until the few verdicts ob- 
tained cannot be sustained. These are faults of 
the bar, as courts and lawyers. If the young bar- 
risters looked for adjudged cases, they must still 
go mainly to England. Hammond's first volume 
was published in 1823. There were about twenty- 
five volumes of the United States supreme court 
reports, a few United States circuit court volumes, 
and from twenty to thirty of each of the oldest 
states.* No old lawyer had them all. These young 
men had none of them. The Ohio statutes at that 
time were found in the twenty-ninth volume, "The 
Sheepskin Code " of the lawyers. 

Of the more notable lawyers they found at the 

* Happy time ! Ere the weak wash of the forty odd volumes of 
state reports each year, the despair of the lawyer, adding immensely 
to his work, and nothing to his learning. He wants to know what 
the law is. He need not care what the courts of Beersheba say 
about it. 



78 B. F. WADE. 

bar of Ashtabula Samuel Wheeler, Mr. Giddings 
and two or three others. O. H. Fitch, Horace 
Wilder, S. S. Osborn and O. H. Knapp were ad- 
mitted at about the same time, as was Seabury 
Ford, the future governor of the state, in adjoin- 
ing Geauga. William L. Perkins and James H. 
Paine were at Painesville of that county, as was 
S. W. Phelps. Rufus P. Spalding must have 
come to the bar about the same time, and Sher- 
lock J. Andrews and John W. Willey were at 
Cleveland. Warren had its bar ; so had Ravenna. 
The practice of " riding the circuit " like a Metho- 
dist preacher never largely obtained on the Reserve 
as in the middle and southern parts of the state. 
No one has ever told us of Frank Wade's first 
case, which usually stands in the lawyer's memory 
as the hunter's first deer, the lover's first kiss, and 
costs him as many tremors and as much fever. 
Of course it was before a magistrate. It may have 
been a small trespass, or a case growing out of the 
universal course of business, of giving notes of 
hand payable in specific articles, as " neat stock," 
"grain," "store pay," or, more general still, "in 
produce." These were a fruitful source of litiga- 
tion, small and large, reaching to my time.* 

* Among my first considerable cases in the Ohio supreme court was 
one on a writing to pay for a farm in wool. The case of Hostatt was 
another, in a small way, before a justice of the peace. He had a due- 
bill for two dollars and a half, payable in produce. The maker ten- 
dered wheat. Of course Hostatt failed, a tender being kept good. 
He wanted whiskey. " W'eat ! w'eat ! w'at kin I do with w'eat ?" 
he demanded. " W'iskey now, I knows right w'ere I kin tu7-n that." 



B. F. WADE. 79 

It is possible his first case was before his brother- 
in-law, Cadwell, to settle a controversy about some 
** saw-logs." That, or Cadwell was a party. Frank 
had no case and was beaten.* 

Another source of litigation arose from the 
method of land sales on the Reserve. Few paid 
for lands at purchase. They took contracts of sale 
from the owner or agent, called in the language 
of the time an "article." The buyer *' articled" 
the land. They should have been recorded. They 
seldom were. Of course the land office knew of 
the sale, strangers never. Often the purchaser 
either never took possession or abandoned it if 
he did. Years ran on without his being heard 
from, the owner knows nothing of him. The ar- 
ticles become forfeit for non-payment, without 
notice to the buyer. Many *' lots " or fraction^ 
so held were " bought out from under him " — 
the holder still in possession, as it was called. 
There were grave questions of " betterments," as 
the improvements were called. Most of the 
owners were non-residents. The legislature came 
to the aid of holders. The cases were numerous, 
sometimes difficult, important and interesting, f 

* S. S. Osborne, a student and partner of Giddings, had the other 
side. Himself became prominent at the bar, and later a leading 
member of the Ohio senate. He was my informant. He said at that 
time Frank could hardly speak at all ; but, though modest, was the 
most courageous man that ever faced a court. 

t N. D. Webb of Warren was a noted lawyer in this class of cases. 
Nearly all the leading lawyers had many of them. It may be remarked 
that lawyers' fees were then ridiculously small, usually paid in kind 



8o B. F. WADE. 

Mr. Wade, like most young lawyers, did a good 
deal of waiting for clients. That is the ordeal. 
He had to see himself passed for other men his 
inferiors, because they were his seniors. The 
cool, phlegmatic New Englanders have always 
been slow to trust young men. " I was always 
too young," said a witty man in his decline, speak- 
ing of them, " until it was discovered that I was 
too old !" It is still the rule with them. Such 
was his standing, however, that in 1831 he formed 
a partnership with J. R. Giddings, which intro- 
duced him to a much wider practice, and more 
important cases. The position of junior, for a 
young or ordinary man, to one of the standing 
of Mr. Giddings, is full of peril. He is apt to be 
overshadowed, dwarfed. He keeps the books, 
looks up the law, runs of errands, serves notices, 
helplessly dependent upon the senior, whose clients 
never become his. He never secures any of his 
own. He merely answers questions as to him — 
his engagements. In court he is helpless alone. 
Always leaning on his partner, he can never go 
alone. Frank Wade never filled this role. He 
was of good age, had confidence, courage and will 
power. He had taken root and made healthful 
growth. He was now to occupy a larger, wider 
field for himself as for the firm. 

It is said that few young men ever showed less 

and stipulated — the amount in advance. I once received twelve bushels 
of wheat for trying a case before a J. P. and a jury. Wheat was fifty 
cents per bushel. 



B. F. WADE. 8 1 

aptitude for public speaking than did he. The 
"testimony to this is unanimous. Probably no 
modern people possess more native aptitude for 
•effective speech than the born Americans of the 
the present time. No people, ancient or modern, 
not excepting the old Greeks, more readily 
become fluent speakers. As an art, oratory is 
everywhere lost. One wonders when he thinks 
what a controlling part speech exercises in all 
human affairs, private as well as public, that so 
little attention is paid to training men, and women 
as well, in the use of words orally. 

Wade seemed an exception to his countrymen, 
who do now, in schools, give very ineffective at- 
tention to elocution. They did then, some, but 
he knew nothing of the higher schools. His ef- 
forts for a long time were dead failures — so fla- 
grantly so that he was laughed at, ridiculed, for 
the sorry showing he made. The shame and mor- 
tification it cost him, the effort of will, persistence 
and endurance of actual labor and agony, to finally 
win success as a speaker, were never known to 
others, not even to Ned, who had some of the 
same difficulties to overcome. He had never at- 
tempted a declamation, or to recite, save from the 
'Day of Doom,' of the great-grandfather. The 
moment he rose to his feet, ideas fled, memory 
was annihilated, language was dead ; a more sen- 
:sitive, less self-sustained man would have never 
tried but once — making such failures. Many in- 
-stances of abandonment of the profession for this 



82 B. F. WADE. 

cause are well known. The American young- 
lawyer must become an advocate — that was the 
rule. Frank Wade was to be an advocate — not a 
mere halting, hemming stammerer, but an advo- 
cate, an orator, strong, bold, effective ; and such 
he became. Not merely an average, a fair speaker^ 
but he pushed, battled, toiled, to the first rank, 
and among the very foremost of that. Even in 
his worst day he refused to write and commit a 
speech. It is rare that a lawyer can find the time 
for that. He scorned it. He would become a 
ready, effective, fluent speaker — and he did as 
stated. 

The faculty of rising in court, stating the case, 
conducting the examination of numerous witnesses^ 
arguing questions of the admissibility of evi- 
dence, during a protracted, sharply contested trial ;, 
and on the close of the evidence, without inter- 
vening time, then proceed to the presentation of 
the case, law and evidence, clearly, strongly, logi- 
cally, with pertinence, wit, eloquence, perhaps 
pathos, always astonishes the lay spectators, as it 
well may. Such efforts rank with the best work 
of the human intellect, and the men capable of it, 
habitually, must have much mental excellence of 
a high order. An advocate who at will did such 
work, Mr. Wade, after years of failure, became ; 
and he enjoyed the fruits of it while he lived. Per- 
haps this was really his greatest success. 

The first necessity of successful advocacy is en- 
tire belief in the justice of a cause. It is the first 



B. F. WADE. 83; 

duty of an advocate to convince himself he is right, 
however he may fare with the court and jury. It 
is a poor advocate who cannot do this ; a careless 
one, or a very bad case, where he does not do it. 
It is a reproach to the bar — many good and very 
pious men are called upon to shake their heads- 
over it — this constant spectacle of honest men, 
earnestly contending on the opposite sides of the 
same case, one of whom must be in the wrong, 
and must know he is. They with charitable effort 
cannot understand it. Indeed ! Divines, the most 
learned and pious, differ as to the meaning of pas- 
sages of writ called holy, given as both sides aver 
by divine inspiration. They used to burn one an- 
other for this difference. As for lawyers, it should 
be remembered that of civil cases not one in ten 
involves directly a question of moral right and 
wrong. They usually are to determine which of 
two parties is to suffer a loss, occasioned by the 
act of a third. One man liable to a loss goes 
to a lawyer and gives him his version of the prov- 
able facts, who, making fair allowance, honestly 
finds the law with him and commences a suit. 
The party sued tells his version to another lawyer^ 
who making the same allowance, finds he has a 
good defense and denies the cause of action. From 
that day to the trial each party looks for witnesses- 
to sustain his statement of fact and the laws 
for authorities in support of their versions of 
the law. When we remember that a man 
can argue himself into or out of anything. 



84 B. F. WADE. 

we may be assured that each lawyer sits down 
to the trial with the conscientious belief that 
he is right. The trouble is not in the law nor 
in the lawyers, but in the facts. Neither party 
knew them all. The best and most honest efforts 
of both sides in proof still leave them in some 
doubt. This fairly illustrates the true position of 
the really good lawyer, who would not intention- 
ally deceive himself, and who would no more tell 
a lie to the court or jury than would any true man 
in an ordinary transaction. If he did, the lawyer 
on the other side would instantly expose him. 
The fact that the contests of lawyers are face 
to face in the open courts, in presence of in- 
terested and curious spectators, keeps men at their 
best, true, honest and chivalrous. Even criminals 
must be defended with learning and zeal. The 
state appoints the judge, the prosecutor ; the jurors 
are its citizens, a part of the state. So are the 
sheriff and his officers, the press and public are 
against the accused, have cornered him. They 
bring him from the jail and place him in the dock. 
In the name of decency, has not the state suffi- 
ciently the advantage ? A lawyer can perform no 
more sacred duty when called to his side than to 
give him his best and most effective services. I 
utterly repudiate Lord Brougham's rule — as do 
American lawyers generally. A lawyer's first 
duty, over and above his client, is to the law. He 
must make fair and honorable use of such means 
only as to him appear clean and real. This ex- 



B. F. WADE. 85 

eludes perjury, and simulated evidence ; with these 
let him not forget God, and do his best. He will 
then only secure a fair trial, such as the law and 
all good men award to the worst criminals. These 
were the rules of Frank Wade's professional life. 
Unquestionably he seldom tried a case without 
believing he was right, ought to succeed, and so 
did his best. That best was usually among the 
very good — the best of his time and opportunities. 
His excellence as a lawyer consisted in the clear- 
ness with which he apprehended the real matter 
in dispute, where and upon what it rested, upon 
what it turned, and what in the white light of law 
would govern and control it. These means were 
to be found and applied. Law with him was a 
science, not a trade. Its reason — philosophy — he 
mastered, could deliver them into the easy appre- 
hension of the court in strong, well-selected lan- 
guage, best adapted for forensic presentation. As 
an advocate he had the rarest of powers — that of 
clear seeing and clear statement — statement which 
outruns argument; precludes it; statement which 
argument sometimes obscures. All great truths 
should be left to their own simple assertion. The 
advocate should place them in clear view and leave 
them. A good advocate must be a good lawyer. 
While he was an admirable lawyer, he dealt equally 
well — perhaps better— with facts. He never made 
that common mistake of overestimating the mental 
capacity of a jury. He never fired over their heads. 
He knew their inability for long-continued, hard, 



.86 B. F. WADE. 

intellectual labor. He never overloaded them. 
In the language of his mother and sisters, learned 
in the Feeding Hills before he was ten years old, 
simple and chaste, he laid before them the real 
matter for them, delivered it safely into their 
■custody. He first cleared the field of all mere 
rubbish, then made two or three strong, conclusive 
points, the fewest that would dispose of the case, 
in the most direct, possible way. His conclusions 
were irrefutable — his premises admitted. It was 
only when his foundations could be assailed that 
he was successfully replied to. All his figures, his 
illustrations, were drawn from their own lives — 
forcible, laughable at times. Not a soft, bland 
speaker, he never attempted to persuade, lead or 
mislead. No sham, no affectation, no flattery, no 
semblance of demagogueism, no cant, no hypocrisy, 
but plain, honest, intense sincerity, working for 
conviction. 

He had a good, well knit, well proportioned 
figure ; erect, flexile, well turned ; a noble head, 
grandly borne; a face well featured, striking; a 
•fine mouth, black, melancholy eyes that had a way 
of burning with a deep, smothered fire ; voice 
good. He usually began to speak standing very 
erect, his right hand in his breast within the vest. 
When something striking, emphatic — a point — 
was reached, he rose on his toes, threw out his 
hand, sometimes both, with force and grace, rising 
■and sinking on his toes in a pecuHar, and in a very 
effective way. Behind all his clearness were force. 



B. F. WADE. 87 

Strength, logic intense, never overwrought earn- 
estness, and more than all, better than all, stood a 
pure-hearted, clean-living truthful man, every fibre 
a man. All these made him one of the most dan- 
gerous as one of the most successful advocates of 
his day. I had heard him spoken of as a strong, 
coarse, unpleasant speaker. Early in the forties I 
heard him argue a demurer at Warren. I thought 
him a handsome, graceful, as well as a strong, 
bold speaker. My early impression always re- 
mained. He and his brother were the best, or 
two of the best, special pleaders in the state, as 
practically they handled the rules of evidence the 
most effectively. Hence, they were the most 
successful lawyers, the most dangerous opponents 
of those now old contests of the Northern Ohio 
bar. 

While the elder brother was of rather rude — 
unpolished — manners, his manner to his oppo- 
nents was kindly, his treatment generous, unless 
provoked by unfairness, chicane or some species 
of pettyfogging, when his wit and sarcasm were 
something awful. His own practice and conduct 
never gave occasion for complaint. Witnesses, 
even on cross-examination, were always treated 
with considerate kindness, unless he suspected a 
deviation from or concealment of the truth. To 
the court always respectful ; and such was his 
faculty of impressing courts that they differed 
from him reluctantly. His was the will-force that 



88 B. F. WADE. 

sometimes carried juries and courts because he 
would carry them. 

An instance of the kindness of his nature, akin 
to weakness, illustrates the manner of man he was. 
He once discovered a man filling his bag from his 
corn crib, and he quietly withdrew to save the 
man the mortification of discovery. He mentioned 
the incident ; he never told the man's name. 

His wit partook of the character of his intellect, 
incisive, and if men sometimes winced under it, 
we know that the man who could be thus tender 
of the feelings of a thief, could not intentionally 
wound. Like other men accustomed to wielding 
trenchant weapons, he was possibly unaware of the 
effect of his blows and thrusts. 

The firm of Giddings & Wade became the lead- 
ing law association of their immediate neighbor- 
hood, when under the changed character of the 
business habits of denser population and the con- 
sequent diversity of employment ; by the opening 
of channels of communication, the growth of lake 
marine, the causes and character of litigation 
changed and multiplied. It was not until compar- 
atively recently that the admiralty laws of congress, 
were extended to the great lakes. Their want in 
the meantime was supplied by legislation of the 
state, which permitted suits for supplies, wages, 
claims for damages, for all causes of action against 
a craft by name, in any county along the lake 
coast, in whose waters service of process could 
be made, no matter where or by whom owned. 



B. F. WADE. Sg 

Geauga had a port. Ashtabula had two. There 
was power in the courts to change the venue of 
marine cases, as of others. Shipping increased. 
Lake Erie was stormy. There were many cases 
for coUisions, especially between steamers and 
sailers, as between steam vessels or sailers. Many 
of these became famous cases. They paid well. 
In the autumn of 1835, Mr. Wade was elected 
prosecuting attorney of Ashtabula county, which 
office he held for its term of two years. The rules 
of evidence are the same in criminal and in civil 
cases. A good law pleader will not fail in his in- 
dictments. Mr. Wade became the model of his 
successors. The so-called criminal laws are purely 
for the suppression of crime by penalties, punish- 
ments, investigated and applied by the courts. 
In Ohio, as in all the younger states, there are no 
so-called common law offenses, although in the 
administration of the statutes, the common law, 
its cases and rules are in constant requisition. The 
law-makers alvvay use its terms, and are guided 
by its lights, so that it becomes the great expo- 
nent of their labors. The criminal law lies in a 
nut shell. Any good commercial lawyer will 
master its specialties in a short time. Criminal 
trials have attractions for many young lawyers, 
and sparingly indulged in may be of service. The 
defense usually consists in showing the inconclu- 
sive nature of the case made by the state. They 
give scope for the apt advocate, and have some- 
thing of the fascination and danger of the gam- 



•90 



B. F. WADE. 



ing house. The most heinous crimes of the Re- 
serve were then horse-stealing and passing 
counterfeit money. 

Wade was a vigorous, safe and popular prose- 
cutor ; relentless where he was satisfied of a cul- 
prit's guilt. He put no others on trial. The 
kindness of his nature ever prompted him to see 
that convicts were as leniently dealt with as the 
public good permitted. 

During all these years, as all the preceding years 
of his life, the still young, rising, risen, well-grown 
and ever growing young lawyer was the most pop- 
ular young man of his time, and widely extended, 
ever-widening circle. A democrat in life, with 
the frankest manners — the few he possessed — cor- 
dial, unpretending, warm-hearted, quick, strong, 
fearless, decisive, magnetic to men, the most virile 
of men, he was a born leader. Men admired, 
were drawn to, and followed him. Never exact- 
ing, never haughty, never imperious, obtrusive or 
overbearing ; simple, truthful, considerate, tender, 
a doer for others all his life, in no way a self-seeker 
ever, the atmosphere of him alway true, manly, a 
hater of a lie, the scorner of sham, the ridiculer 
of effeminacy. Young men were drawn to him, 
became his students, adopted his manner — it often 
set badly on them. They combed their hair back 
over their heads. Where he was merely frank and 
abrupt, they became coarse and rough ; where he 
indulged in the stronger English, they became 
profane. In a few years the bar of northern Ohio 



B. F. WADE. 



91 



was invaded by these rude, swearing caricatures of 
the strong, magnetic man. 

His influence, save in the matter of manners, 
was wholly good, directly in the line of honor, 
integrity, manliness, truth, clean living, industry, 
and thorough mastery of the law for the student, 
enterprise in all pursuits. The austerity, the 
lurid theology of the Puritans, drove his free, 
masculine mind, his tender nature, to open revolt. 
The reverence of his self-poised soul remained; 
was ever strong. He stepped from the prison- 
house of bigotry into the whiter outside light and 
perfect freedom of thought. The frankness of his 
nature gave utterance to his impressions, views, 
opinions. Jefferson, Ashtabula, the Western Re- 
serve, were orthodox. The revolt had begun in 
New England. The healthy intellect and soul of 
young Wade had taken the new spirit into the 
Ohio woods. It found its own utterance. Not 
offensively ; he was not a propagandist of these 
ideas. His regard for the feelings of others, his 
memory of his mother, forbade that. These, his 
skeptical notions, were the one drawback to his 
immense personal popularity. These, too, in- 
fected his personal followers. Indeed, so many 
marks, so much of the obvious Wade, were borne 
about by them, that those of us who were beyond 
the outer ring of his growing]~circle could ^gener- 
ally tell one of them in five minutes, if he did not 
sooner proclaim himself This was the ^estimate 
of him by men. I have enquired by letters in 



92 



B. F. WADE. 



vain for the estimate of him by women. Thus 
far, the form of no woman has flitted across 
the field of vision. He had much to win the re- 
spect, admiration and confidence of women. I 
presume that he did not seek their society. So 
manly a man must have been anxious for their 
good opinion. Men widely differ in this regard, 
I have known many strong men to whom the grace 
of women was not necessary. Wade may have 
been one of them. I may secure more light. 

At the October election of 1837 Mr. Wade was 
elected to the Ohio senate. In 1839 he was placed 
in nomination again for the senate and defeated. 
The causes were peculiar. In 1841 he was re- 
elected. He resigned, but was elected again the 
ensuing autumn. I shall have ample occasion 
later to deal with the politician and statesman, 
after the judge. 

The firm of Giddings & Wade was dissolved in 
the spring of 1837, by the retirement of Mr. Gid- 
dings, and the new firm of Wade & Ranney was 
formed. Mr. Ranney had been a student of the 
late firm, was to develop, perhaps, one of the 
best, if not the first, legal minds of the state, and 
take rank with the great American lawyers and 
jurists. 

The year 1837 saw the first of the great, wide- 
spread commercial disasters of the country, and 
presented a new test, a new ordeal, a new prob- 
lem for the American people. Its causes, though 
then well understood, were less obvious than, with 



B. F. WADE. 93 

wider induction and larger experience, they appear 
to us now. One of them was the war of Andrew 
Jackson on the old United States bank, the re- 
moval of the public monies from its vaults to the 
seven pet state banks ; the over issue by them ; 
stimulated by him ; the general consequent infla- 
tion of bank issues ; the monstrous growth of 
credits ; the wild and universal epidemic specula- 
tion, mainly in real estate ; the multiplication of 
new cities, mostly on paper. The collapse came 
of course. It is mentioned here because the late 
firm of Giddings & Wade had been among the 
speculators, especially in the city and water lots 
of the Maumee — platted for cities from its mouth 
to Fort Wayne. The firm, the individual mem- 
bers and many friends, became bankrupt. Wade 
made large, timely sales, but they were caught. 
For him, as for his younger brother, there was but 
one way of escape — liquidation, payment. All 
the large earnings for years were henceforth de- 
voted to this, a sacred purpose, until the last 
dollar was honorably extinguished. Mr. Wade 
had to become thrifty and careful of expenditure. 
The country at large took refuge in a general 
bankrupt law. Two have been enacted, amended, 
carefully administered and repealed within our 
time, indicating that the sense of the American 
people, enlightened or otherwise, is adverse to a 
bankrupt law as an institution of commerce. How- 
ever that may be, neither member of the old firm, 



94 B. F. WADE. 

nor did the younger Wade, think of shelter in the 
provisions of the older act. 

The next year, 1841, witnessed the second of 
the most important events of the life of B. F. 
Wade. It would be quite in accord with the 
usages of personal history to state a marriage in 
parenthesis or a foot note. These papers are con- 
structed in my own way. This thing is of too 
much importance to be mentioned at the end of a 
desultory chapter. 



CHAPTER IV. 

AFreakof Fashion.— Old Bachelor's Romance. —Caroline M.Rosekrans. 
— Parentage. — Her Mother's Second Marriage. — General Parsons. — 
Henry E. Parsons. — Removal to Ashtabula. — Caroline Meets Frank 
Wade. — His Speech. — Courtship and Campaign of 1840. — Marriage. 
— Home Life at Jefferson. — First Meets Fillmore. — Elected Judge. — 
His Circuit and Labors. — Contest with the State Supreme Court. — 
Taxation of Costs. — Retires from the Bench. — Action of the Bar. 

Frank Wade became a very busy, hard-work- 
ing man before 1835. ^^ the latter part of 1834 
a young man became a student of Giddings & 
Wade, attracted by the fame of the senior of the 
firm, from whom I learned more of Mr. Wade 
personally at that interesting time of his life than 
from all others. During his novitiate a great 
change appeared in the dress and something in 
the manner of the lawyer. From one of the most 
careless and indifferent in the matter of attire, he 
became one of the most careful and fastidious. 
The gentleman referred to had rare taste in mat- 
ters of dress, and was much in Mr. Wade's con- 
fidence in the things of coats, cravats and shirt 
frills, then much worn, and to whom the lawyer 
presented a complete outfit, the work of a New 
York tailor, before he left the office. Various 



96 B. F. WADE. 

were the speculations as to the cause of this 
change in the tastes and dress of the advocate. 
If there was anything special it never transpired. 
It was the impression of my informant that some 
to him unknown maiden was the inspiration of it. 
So far as known he distinguished no lady by ap- 
proaching her, nor did he seek the society of 
women. He passed his thirty-seventh birthday, 
if not untouched at least in safety. Thirty-eight, 
thirty-nine, forty, and yet unmarried. Not thus 
solitary was his life to remain. 

There is a universal delusion that love romances 
are the special events attendant on actual youthful- 
ness of years. Youthfulness may be necessary to 
their beautiful existence. It is the youthfulness of 
heart and spirit often perennial. Old poets have 
sung sweetest of love — old men have written some 
of the most charming of romances. There is in 
most normally structured and grown men and 
women the elements and tendencies which lead to 
their most intimate association. Nature knows 
what she is about, and secures her own purpose. 
Until that is accomplished in the individual, and 
usually till the birth of children, the spirit and 
flavor of poetry and romance linger in the heart 
and atmosphere of most men and women. Who- 
ever doubts this let him seek the confidence of 
some middle-aged bachelor or spinster. Even in 
the oldest of these unmated he will find low down 
in the heart a little drop of condensed sweet — a 
preserved nectary, though the flower perished, its 



B. F. JVADE. 97 

petals withered in the long, unblessed past. " All 
the world loves a lover." The proverb had its life 
in this law of the human race. Art compels his 
appearance in song and story, epic and novel. 
The elements of romance and tenderness were as 
strong and as yet unsunned in the deep nature 
of the lawyer at forty as of the young man of 
twenty-five. 

Caroline M. Rosekrans was born at Lansing- 
burg, New York, July 30, 1805. Her father, 
Depin Rosekrans, was a merchant of that place, 
where he died while she was in her second year. 
Her mother, a daughter of Nehemiah Hubbard, 
then a retired merchant and banker of Middle- 
town, Connecticut, her native place, returned to 
that city, where later she contracted a second 
marriage with Enoch Parsons, esq., a son of revo- 
lutionary General Parsons, also one of the first 
territorial judges of Ohio. Of this marriage a son, 
Henry E. Parsons, esq., was the issue. The new 
family continued to live in Middletown until the 
younger Parsons removed to Ashtabula, Ohio, in 
1832, where he still resides. His mother and 
Caroline became residents there in 1837. 

A child of affluence and of cultured parents, 
Caroline was educated with as much care and at- 
tention as were at the beginning of the century 
bestowed upon the minds of the fortunately sur- 
rounded young American woman. Nature was 
kind to the young girl in the bestowal of a well- 
formed, pleasing person, a blonde, attractive face, 



98 B. F. WADE. 

vigorous constitution, and a mind of unusual 
strength and capacity. The education she re- 
ceived was one to leave the person to develop and 
mature much as nature intended, healthfully and 
in just proportions — a fit residence for a mind 
which for its grasp and intelligence was more like 
the vigorous reach and play of an educated, well- 
read young man, than of the thin-soled-shoe, wasp- 
waisted, pale, simpering girl of that day. Sex is 
not a garment that a woman can throw off at will 
— that she can lose or be parted from. She may 
say and do the things that a man does and says. 
In her hands and mouth they are womanly. Sex 
is the inseparable character and quality of her 
heart, soul, intellect, of her acts and speech, as of 
her physical form, and cannot be separated from 
either. Caroline Rosekrans grew to be one of 
the most womanly of women, as at her matu- 
rity one of the most attractive. She doubt- 
less had her fancies, her preferences and repug- 
nances, as all healthful girls do. Not a prude, 
not affecting to dislike or avoid men. Doubtless 
she sympathized with their intellectual labors,, 
their free, robust life. She early became a great 
reader, and such she always continued to be. 
Not a reader of novels — of them but sparingly. 
A reader of histories, of biographies, of politics, 
newspapers — well-informed. So she reached her 
full womanhood, and lived on — growing, developing 
mentally, morally; ripening in person, extending 
her acquaintances ; living cheerfully an active, vig~ 



B. F. WADE. 99 

orous, womanly life, neither pining or sighing for 
any possible future, cheerfully awaiting it, what- 
ever it might be. 

Ashtabula, at the time of the arrival of Mrs. 
Parsons and Miss Rosekrans, was one of the most 
active and important places on the lake. Nearly 
every one of the great lake-going steamers called 
at its wharf — sometimes half a dozen in a day. 
The lake at that time for five or six months of the 
year was the sole highway for the immense transit 
of passengers and property. Ashtabula had much 
of wealth, and there were the marked beginnings 
of class distinction, which have not yet been 
evolved out of the race of men. 

The newly arrived were a real accession to the 
place. Mr. Parsons had capital, character and 
business capacity. The young lady had marked 
character, womanly accomplishments, and a rarely 
cultivated mind. She had no position to attain. 
She quietly took what was hers of right and by 
use. 

In the absence of certain information, it is easy 
to fancy how the first meeting of Miss Rosekrans 
and Frank Wade came about. It was in the 
kindling of the fires of the never to be forgotten 
though now grossly misrepresented campaign of 
1840, which was in the first months of that mem- 
orable year. Wade was quite the first to sound 
the trumpet call to arms in his region, and was 
one of the most effective and popular speakers of 
the state, already widely known. There was to- 



loo B. F. WADE. 

be a meeting at Ashtabula, at which he was to 
speak upon the new and old issues of the shaping 
campaign, hereafter to be dealt with. Caroline 
had heard of him. The Astabula ladies spoke 
of him — an interesting puzzle to them. No 
one was much acquainted with him, they said. 
He was very popular with men, but seemed to 
•care nothing for ladies' society. Never did. Not 
only a bachelor, he was "an old bachelor." Had 
he never courted a girl — had any heart history? 
No one had ever heard of such a thino-. No, he 
did not like women, though there was much in 
him to interest them. It is not at all likely that 
the healthful fancy of Caroline Rosekrans was in the 
least attracted by what she heard of him. She had 
■doubtless wondered what such a man could see in 
the average pink-faced girl to attract him. By intel- 
ligence, temperament and association, she was a 
Whig. She was much interested in the popular 
rising against the party in power. She went with 
her brother to the meeting to hear Mr. Wade's 
speech. She never had heard a political speech. 
As usual in that region, at that day, it was pre- 
sided over by a New England " moderator," who 
called on a clergyman to open it with pra}^er. 
Caroline had no trouble in distinguishing Mr. 
Wade, and while this was going on she noticed 
his face, and at the first did not very well like it. 
Though well-featured, it was a little pinched at the 
temple, but the head was good, the figure as he 
arose manly, the attitude striking. He at once 



B. F. WADE. loi 

launched himself on his theme, the arraignment of 
Mr. Van Buren's administration and the Demo- 
cratic party. Strong, bold, sustained, manly. 
After he closed, Mr. Parsons, who had met him, 
lingfered with his sister at the exit for a word of 

o 

congratulation. He presented the successful ora- 
tor, still aglow, to his sister. Mr. Wade had sev- 
eral times caught her handsome, intelligent inter- 
ested face during his hour and a half of a speech 
— a stranger he noted, as also that it pleased him. 
For once he was glad to be presented to a lady. 
They had a few pleasant words, and he carried off, 
for him, an unusual impression of the personal 
charm of a woman's presence. Something infin- 
itely sweet, attractive, delicious in this fully ma- 
tured, virginal, womanly woman. They were 
near each other long enough for Mr. Parsons to 
ask him to call. He remained in town over night, 
as much of the ensuing day, and did call ere he 
returned to Jefferson. 

Something of this we know to be true. The 
acquaintance begun, ran on during the summer, 
autumn and winter. ^ Wade was frank, direct and 
manly in his wooing. The lady was greatly 
pleased with his attentions and let him see she 
was, as a woman might. "During the courtship 
he came often to see her. They were congenial 
spirits," is the statement of one who knew all 
about it.^ That was an important, an interesting, 
a memorable year to Mr. Wade. What with his 

* Letter of Henry E. Parsons, esq. 



I02 B. F. WADE. 

prosecution of Mr. Van Buren and the Democracy, 
his attention to the courts of law, his suit to Miss 
Rosekrans, in which he was no laggard as we have 
seen, it was a busy year as well. They were 
married, May 19, 1841, and took up their resi- 
dence in Jefferson, where the bride of that far-off 
day still resides. 

All marriages worthy the name, though possi- 
bly less to a man than to a woman, are of the 
gravest moment to him. No man can open his 
heart, his life, and admit another life into it, 
become a part of it, become in turn a part of 
another life, without great and important conse- 
quences to himself and others. This marriage 
was exceptionally fortunate, happy — a : love 
marriage, not so rare as is supposed. We hear 
mostly of the unfortunate ones. By this mar- 
riage were born two sons — Lieutenant-Colonel 
James F. Wade, in 1843, and Captain Henry P. 
Wade, in 1845.7 

A financial disaster — a panic widespread and 
general — always precipitates a vast volume of 
credits to the bottom as dead debt, to be got rid 
of, cancelled or buried ere business can revive, 
or any degree of prosperity restored. Generally 
the revival brings forward new names, a new, 
younger set of men, new commercial houses. The 
disasters of 1837 were not repaired save by a lapse 

fBoth were appointed to the regular service, as soon as of military 
age. The elder is with his regiment. The youngest resigned at the 
end of the war and is now a farmer in Jefferson. 



B. F. WADE. 



103 



of many years, involving the overthrow of the 
Jackson Locofoco — or as it came to call itself the 
Democratic party, in 1840. J The Whig tariff and 
other measures of the successful party had much 
to do with the restoration of confidence, the crea- 
tion and employment of new capital. 

Lawyers and courts were busy for years with the 
fossil remains of the former world. Judgments 
innumerable, followed by creditors' bills, to un- 
cover properties and reach equities. There was a 
large crop of cases. Contrary to popular impres- 
sion, the legal harvest in money was small. The 
profession fares best when business is healthy. 
The new firm had its full share of this unsatisfac- 
tory business, procured its full share of never to be 
satisfied judgments. Clerks and sheriffs are paid 
before lawyers. They, too,, performed immense 
labors never to be compensated. 

With the new men, the new era, came new 
methods of business — the old commercial rules of 
the older communities not created, but recog- 
nized by statutes and enforced by courts. '' Truck 
and dicker " made way for cash. Later, the Whig 
legislature enacted Alfred Kelley's bank bill ; this 
and later a new tax law, and Ohio, her canals 

:J;At a famous meeting in Tammany hall to determine a grave and 
bitter local quarrel, it came to be known that upon a given con- 
tingency the lights would be turned off, and each man of the other side 
carried with him a box oi locofoco matches. The lights were turned off 
and thereupon were lit a thousand of the sulphurous pine sticks. 
Hence the name of Locofoco applied to the prevailing faction speedily 
transferred to the party at large by its opponents. 



I04 B. F. WADE. 

completed, took her place henceforth with the 
states whose industries and trades were organized 
in accord with the established usages of the mod- 
ern world, to remain until reorganized without re- 
vulsion under the quiet revolution, to be wrought 
in the near future by railroads and the telegraph. 
New cases, new questions arose for the bar and 
courts. They are the last to be reached in 
changes by new processes. Questions and con- 
troversies arise, pass the stage of discussion by 
the parties, their correspondents and brokers, 
then the lawyers are called in and they take them 
to the courts. During nearly the whole of the 
late war, the supreme court of the United States 
sat serenely adjudging the old cases involving old 
well established rules, in contemplation of law, 
oblivious of the new and awful issues discussed and 
decided in the red forum of battle. They were 
there settled ere the momentous constitutional 
and legal issues springing from war reached it, for 
which there were no rules, no precedents. 

With the revival of business in Ohio, the pro- 
fession and practice of law passed a new phase. 
The firm of Wade & Ranney had quite the lead 
in Ashtabula. The rapid rise of Mr. Ranney at 
the bar and the constant calls to Trumbull, were 
such as to warrant, require, the opening of an 
office at its shiretown — Warren — now a flourish- 
ing city, and there Mr. Ranney took up his resi- 
dence, which soon brought the partners to the 
lead in that wealthy and important county also. 



B. F. WADE, 



105 



From this time forward there were few important 
cases in the two counties that one or the other or 
both were not engaged in. Mr. Wade had occa- 
siqnal calls to Geauga, Ravenna and Cleveland. 
It is not to be supposed that Wade & Ranney 
had things their own way, even in their own coun- 
ties. Horace Wilder, Ned Wade and Sherman 
were in Ashtabula; Tod Hoffman & Hutchins, 
the Sutliffs, John Croweli at Warren ; Van R. 
Humphrey, Otis & Tilden at Ravenna ; R. P. 
Spalding and L. V. Bierce at Akron ; Reuben 
Hitchcock, E. T. Wilder, Perkins & Osborn, 
and Benjamin Bissel at Painesville, quite their 
equals, with a host of younger men coming on at 
the bar, without mentioning Cleveland. It has 
always seemed to me that the period between the 
formation of the firm of Wade & Ranney and the 
election of Wade to the bench, was one of a very 
high degree of excellence, of strength and learn, 
ing of the bar of these Reserve counties. Cleve- 
land then had H. B. Payne, Andrews before 
named, Bolton & Kelley, Backus and others, and 
certainly the north was in this respect the equal 
of any part of Ohio. The practice of law under 
the guidance of the bar, with occasional judicious 
legislation, also at their hands, so far as procedure 
was concerned, was very well perfected, was really 
a useful, expeditious method of adjusting the dif. 
ferences of men. The courts Avere able and in- 
dustrious, and nowhere was there the great drift 
of dead wood damming up the administration of 



xo6 B. F. WADE. 

the law, and damning the courts and bar for in- 
equaUty to their duties. A class of men who have 
the entire control of the third department of the 
government, national and state, are certainly re- 
sponsible for its working power and efficiency. 
That it is now absurdly behind the other two is 
mainly their fault. Let them be held to account. 
It must have been at about the commencement 
of this period that the encounter between Frank 
Wade and Millard Fillmore occurred. A steamer 
owned at Buffalo was libelled — we should call it 
now — under the Ohio statute, in Ashtabula 
county, for running down a sailing vessel. Fill- 
more was then at his best, learned, able, hand- 
some, elegant, eloquent. He came to Jefferson 
with the owners and witnesses to find out the 
reason of the detention. There he met the 
younger, full-grown, alert, strong, comparatively 
rough Frank Wade, to whom he was no more 
than any other man. Frank had never been 
heard of at Buffalo, then the largest city of the 
lakes. He had the advantage of the home forum. 
The case must have been tried before Humphrey, 
an able judge of much presence and dignity. The 
case was important, was closely contested, and 
conducted with great and probably fairly matched 
ability. The Buffalonians began by underrating 
the leading counsel for the plaintiff. The trial 
attracted much attention, and the Ohioans felt a 
special pride in the splendid manner in which their 
champion met, and as they claimed, overthrew 



B. F. WADE. 



107 



the eastern knight supposed to be peerless. Vic- 
tory declared in his favor, and it was claimed the 
strangers retired to their city much discomfited, f 
It is the habit of the multitude to lose sight of 
the real issue on trial, and fix their gaze on the 
leading counsel and regard it as a contest between 
them personally, in which the best man wins. 
There is less difference between fairly good law- 
yers than laymen generally suppose. Something 
there certainly is in temperament and aptitude, 
dependent upon endowment. One man, strong 
and able, a master of his case, arises seemingly at 
a distance from the jury; he never overcomes it. 
He is strong, logical, convincing. They may be 
constrained to find for him, but he aroused their 
combativeness, arrayed them against him. An- 
other gets up within the charmed circle of their 
sympathies, addresses them as one of themselves. 
They go willingly with him. They may be com. 
pelled to return an adverse verdict. They will do 
it reluctantly. One man cannot examine a wit- 
ness so as to get from him all he knows, even 
when he is anxious to tell it. Another gets it all, 
and more too, even when the witness wishes to 
conceal it. Still one lawyer can do about as much 
as another, and one good lawyer is better than 
five equally good. There is seldom room for 
more than two. It is a mistake to increase the 



+ The late Hon. O. P. Brown, a student in Wade's office, was my 
informant. 



io8 B. F. WADE. 

number. In the courts, safety does not dwell in a 
multitude of counsel. 

And so the years ran on. The state grew in 
population and wealth, the two lawyers in business, 
fame and influence, the younger going on to his 
proper place at the head of the bar in his section, 
giving their time, talents and best labor to advise 
and advance the material interests of men greatly 
their inferiors. This was their business, their 
profession, having few or no material interests of 
their own. Wise, sagacious to counsel others, 
negligent and inefficient in the management of 
their own property affairs. So the years bore 
them on, until the change came which necessarily 
severed their association and the senior from the 
bar. As said, the state of Ohio was niggardly in 
the matter of compensation in its public service. 
The salary of the president-judges of the common 
pleas courts reached a minimum of seven hundred 
and fifty dollars in the early years of the reign of 
Wade &Ranney, the time of an anti-lawyer spasm. 
Here and there a fairly good lawyer, who wished 
to retire and was ambitious to sit on a bench, 
accepted office under it. There are always a set 
of legal deadbeats, who hang about the courts 
talking of other men's cases, and trying the triers 
allowable of neither men or the gods, who eagerly 
sought places on the bench. The act reducing 
salaries brought it within their hungry reach. 
The experiment was bad every way, and the 
good sense, or the better sense of the legislature 



B. F. WADE. 109 

removed the poor demagogical law, and 'placed 
the judiciary on a better footing. 

In February, 1847, the legislature of Ohio 
elected Mr. Wade president-judge of the third 
judicial circuit, then composed of the five impor- 
tant counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Mahoning, 
Portage and Summit. That was the second yeau 
of the fateful war with the unfortunate Mexicans, 
and the battle of Buena Vista was fought during the 
same February. The seed once sown was quick- 
ening in the greater field of his final labors. He 
was still unconsciously preparing, maturing for 
the work. Patience for a little space. The time 
will be short. Four years will he judge his peo- 
ple in righteousness, and when summoned will 
then be surprised as now by this call to the judg- 
ment seat. 

The counties of his circuit were among the 
most populous, wealthy and prosperous of the 
state. Though still largely agricultural, they 
were traversed by canals, infant cities were spring- 
ing up, mines were opened, and various extensive 
manufactories were coming to importance. The 
new justice at once entered upon his new duties. 
He was greatly needed. There was a large arrear 
of business on the calendars. In the five counties 
collectively, there would be fifteen terms of his 
court during each year. The initial days of the 
terms were fixed by statute. Under his adminis- 
tration, the last day in a given county was the 
first of the succeeding in the next shire. 



no B. F. WADE. 

No man ever reached the bench better equipped 
for its best and highest duties than did Mr. 
Wade. He was of good age, young enough to 
adapt himself readily to the place, a mind thor- 
oughly trained — had acquired the legal instinct — 
great capacity for work, an even, healthy, good 
temper, a man of secure popularity with the peo- 
ple, admired, loved, profoundly respected by 
the bar, he took his place not only by right of 
unsought election, but the divine right of fitness. 
Imbued with the robust spirit of the common law, 
his native love of right and justice still prevailed, 
and his knowledge of the law enabled him gener- 
ally to secure that, so strongly entrenched that 
his judgments were rarely disturbed. 

I was never in his court. I was for the four 
years of his presiding in the adjoining circuit. 
Heard of him constantly. There now lie before 
me two well-written accounts of his career on the 
bench by lawyers who practiced before him, both 
of whom since sat on the bench ;* and I am sur- 
rounded by ample information from various 
sources. If it is all friendly, and from apprecia- 
tive admirers, it is to be said that, robust, virile 
as his nature was, trenchant as were the blows he 
dealt, caustic as was his wit, he never made ene- 
mies, was never the object of detraction. The 
real man stood so palpably before all men's eyes 
that whoever spoke of him praised him, and often 
in terms that seemed laudatory to strangers. 

* Hon. Darius Cadwell and Hon. R. F. Paine. 



B. F. WADE. Ill 

I once heard an educated man — a lawyer and a 
judge — a man of fine ability, while occupying the 
place of presiding judge on the bench in Cleve- 
land, and who since sat on the bench of the high- 
est court of another state, say : "I never sat in 
the trial of a case in which I cared two cents which 
side gained it." This was a mode of showing his 
utter indifference. I heard it with amazement. 
He fortified himself by quoting a similar declara- 
tion of a really much admired judge, well-known 
to us both. 

Mr. Wade, as I think, was not that sort of a 
judge. He saw at once the right of a case. No 
man saw the moral right, when involved, quicker. 
He was, of all things, loyal to the law, and this, 
in the absence of a controlling moral question, 
was to prevail. It is generally found, when a 
case is cleared of foreign matter, that the rule of 
common right, when involved, and the rule of the 
common law coincide. With his mastery of the 
law, mastery of men, he usually so shaped a trial 
that ultimately the right prevailed. The Ameri- 
can judge declines to deal with the case itself in 
his instructions to the jury. Wade's ingenuity 
enabled him, by the aid of a supposed case, to 
bring the real issue broadly within their apprehen- 
sion, in the clear light of, its right and wrong. 

It was useless to attempt to blind him with 
mere technicalities. He usually found a recog- 
nized legal way to the right. Securely indepen- 
dent, no considerations of party or favor to per- 



112 B. F. WADE. 

sons influenced him ; nor was he ever suspected 
of being so influenced. We have heard of doc- 
tors who never lost a patient, lawyers who never 
lost a case, and of judges never reversed. To say 
that a judge of a nisi priiis court, in the multitude 
of cases, the hurry and pressure of business, never 
committed an error, would be a preposterous 
statement. Of Judge Wade this is quite true. 
He generally gave reasons so satisfactory for his 
conclusions that, as a rule, his decisions were ac- 
quiesced in. No judge ever put himself more 
unreservedly on the record than did he. Of the 
few cases taken to the supreme court from him, 
very few were reversed. As a rule, he was there 
held to be right. A notable' exception may be 
mentioned. A case arose before him of consider- 
able difficulty. He gave it full consideration and 
decided it. It was taken to the supreme court 
and there reversed. On mandate it came up be- 
fore him. He disregarded the mandate and fol- 
lowed his own first decision, and such was his 
judgment. "But, your honor, the supreme 
court reversed your former judgment ! " exclaimed 
the now re-beaten counsel. "Yes, so I have 
heard. I will give them a chance to get right," 
was the quiet reply. It was again taken to the 
supreme court and re-presented there, and this 
time with Judge Wade's reported opinion. On 
reconsideration this was found to be the better 
rule. The court, instead of attaching him for 
contempt, reversed itself and affirmed his last 



B. F. WADE. 113 

judgment. This must be the one unique instance 
of adherence to first impressions by a subordinate 
court in the judicial history of an English speak- 
ing people, and honorable to both courts.^ 

There used to be much " retaxing of cost bills " 
by the court, bills of the cost in cases as made up 
by the clerk, under the sometimes obscure stat- 
utes, often of no little difficulty. Such a case 
before him may be mentioned, as more illustrative 
of his character as a man than of his learning, 
perhaps, as a judge. The case was quite fully 
presented and taken under consideration. On his 
return at the ensuing term it was called up, talked 
over, and with a promise to ''dispose of it" at 
the next, the third term, he took refugQ in the 
causes awaiting him in the next county. That 
the third term lapsed, he was closing up the final 
session, settling exceptions and journal entries 
(the Yankee lawyers of the Reserve of that day 
were very particular about these), was about to 
order adjournment sine die, when the nervous 
counsel ventured to remind him of the mooted 
matter of costs. '' Mr. clerk, what is the amount 

in dispute?" he asked. " Nine dollars and 

cents," was the reply. "I'll pay the thing,t" 

he observed as to himself, throwing a ten-dollar 
bill down to the clerk with '* Enter the costs sat- 

* Judge Cadwill. 

t If the curious reader should fill the above blank with an English 
damned, he might do the otherwise model judge and history no 
injustice. 



114 B. F. WADE. 

isfied. Mr. sheriff, adjourn the court without 
day." It was disposed of. 

Judge Wade's industry was great ; his faculty 
for the dispatch of business remarkable. The bar 
was worked to its fullest capacity by him ; the 
over-heavy calendars were brought within working 
compass, and the shortening years ran on. 

On the fifteenth of March, 1851, while presid- 
ing on the bench at Akron (county of Summit), a 
telegram was handed him, announcing his election 
to the senate of the United States for a full con- 
stitutional term. He read it, handed it down to a 
gentleman of the bar near him, and went on with 
the pending trial, as if no unusual thing had 
occurred. In one way it was the usual. The 
position, in many respects the most honorable 
and desirable in the Republic, came unsought, 
unexpected. The unexpected ruled his life in the 
matter of the public service. He was aware that 
his name had been mentioned at the state capital 
during the winter in connection with the pending 
senatorial election. The selection of himself, 
finally, to fill the august place, was a complete 
surprise. 

His all too short service on the bench was now 
concluded. Had he not been called to a higher 
field, we should greatly regret it ; had he in any 
way failed in this new field, we should deeply 
, deplore it. He had the making of a great judge. 
In his obedience to this last call, the administra- 
tion of domestic justice suffered a loss never fully 



B. F. WADE. 115 

repaired. While the state lost the Republic, 
the cause of broad national justice, the large cause 
of freedom and the rights of men, were large 
gainers. On the twenty-seventh of March follow- 
ing his election, a bar meeting was called at 
Akron to take leave of Mr. Wade as judge. 
Many able men of the three political parties were 
present, and several from points remote. The 
assemblage was large, and with entire unanimity 
adopted the following as their sentiments on the 
occasion : 

Resolved, That, as members of the bar, we cannot but regret the 
departure of the Hon. B. F. Wade from his position as president 
judge of the Third judicial circuit, a position he has maintained with 
dignity, courtesy, impartiality and ability in the highest degree cred- 
itable to himself and the common public, suitors, and improvement of 
the bar. 

Resolved, That we congratulate him upon his election to the 
highest legislative council of the nation, and take pleasure in express- 
ing our confidence that he will discharge the functions of his new office 
with the same extended intelligence, high integrity and sound judg- 
ment that distinguished him upon the bench. 

From the Mahoning Index of February 22, 
1850, a Democratic organ, edited by a prominent 
Democratic leader, I quote the opinion of a hos- 
tile political partisan contained in a single para« 
graph. Speaking of Wade while presiding in the 
Mahoning county court of common pleas, he 
said : 

Our court of common pleas has been in session since the twelfth, 
Hon. B. F. Wade, one of the best, if not the best, judge for the peo- 
ple and justice in the state, presiding ; a man of superior legal attain- 
ment, and one that the bar and the community may well be proud of. 

These papers are but preliminary to the large 



Ii6 B. F, WADE. 

work before us. It will now be necessary to turn 
back to Mr. Wade's election to the state senate, 
make brief mention of service there and before 
the people as a popular political teacher and 
speaker, and also make a rapid survey of the rise 
and status of the slave power at the time of his 
first assault upon it to his election to the national 
senate, from which time his personal history will 
be drawn against its gigantic struggle as a shifting 
background, necessary to be studied with some 
care to an accurate apprehension of his services 
and character as a senator and a patriot. 



CHAPTER V. 

Slavery. — Summerset's Case. — Trade in Negroes. — Clarkson. — Wilber- 
force. — Slavery abolished by the Northern States. — Judge Taney's 
Words. — Slavery not before Sectional. —Fugitive Slaves. — Quakers. — 
Maroons. — Change of Moral Sentiment. — Louisiana Admitted. — 
Missouri Admitted. — Immediate Emancipation. — The North stil^ 
Pro-Slavery. — Charles Hammond. — Theodore Weld. — Lundy. — 
Garrison. — ^J. G. Birney.— J. L. Adams.— Ohio Black Laws. — Wade 
in the Ohio Senate. — Kentucky Commissioners to Ohio. — Tin Pan. 
— Speech on the Kentucky Slave Bill. — Gregory Powers. — Defeated 
for Re-election. — Re-elected in 1841, 

According to American ideas every man, and 
woman as well, is born a politician. If the 
right of self-government is inherent, the right to- 
the means of that government, though artificial, is 
a natural right ; and as in association we cannot 
govern ourselves without governing others, gov- 
ernment among Americans imposes mutual and 
reciprocal rights and duties. Under a universal 
abstention from the discharge of this duty, for even 
a short period, the visible government would perish. 
Any neglect of this duty by the better class, which 
seemingly is becoming onerous to many of it, is 
attended by grave mischiefs to the public, though 
the government goes on and will, however derelict 
they may become. There is nothing men so 



ii8 B. F. WADE. 

cheerfully undertake as the government of their 
fellows, curious as that may seem to the thought- 
ful. We saw Mr. Wade elected to the senate of 
the United States, but advised the reader there 
was much matter to take account of before we 
could accompany him to the capital. Something 
of his earlier political career, also a rapid sketch 
of the rise and progress of the great slavery con- 
test, down to the time he entered upon his new 
duties. These labors are mainly for the younger 
readers, who will not take it amiss if I deliver into 
their easy apprehension an outline of what led to 
one of the great epochs of human history. Many 
who witnessed the earlier and less important inci- 
dents of it may care to have their memories 
revived, perhaps corrected. 

If a relation, an institution common to all 
nations and tribes of men, is to be classed as a 
natural relation or institution, then is slavery of 
that class. It is a law of man's nature that he can 
only associate with men and brutes by finding a 
plane where they can associate in common, where, 
while he influences, governs them, they also influ- 
ence him. If he elevates them they reduce him, 
and the more there is in common between them, 
the greater is their influence on him. A horse 
exercises great influence on many men, a slave on 
many more, hence the institution of slavery is the 
most hurtful of all influences upon a people. The 
higher forms of selfishness, which lead men to pur- 
sue their own highest good, would induce a people 



B. F. WADE, ng 

to abolish slavery, eradicate all forms of vice, and 
permit the fewest possible of a lower class. These 
considerations are too broad and absolute for more 
than mention. They range with the higher morals. 
" Slavery," says a late English writer,^ *' was in 
England never abolished by law, hence Lord 
Mansfield's decision in the Somerset case (1772) 
was without legal foundation." This is a misstate- 
ment. Slavery in England, at that time, was with- 
out legal foundation, and hence Somerset's master 
could not hold him there. At common law men 
could not be held as slaves by custom, no matter 
how universal, or long continued. Hence slaves 
escaping beyond the reach of the statute which 
made them such, to free territory, were free. So 
we ordained constitutions and laws for their return 
to slavery. 

The law of the Somerset case did not reach the 
English colonies. Some of these were taken from 
Spain, notably Jamaica, where slavery existed. 
In others, as in the continental colonies, slavery 
was planted by England herself. Sir John Haw- 
kins, as is said, made the first venture in this com- 
merce in 1562, bringing a well assorted cargo of 
negroes and prayer books. Curiously enough 
negro slavery was introduced into Spanish America 
by the good Spanish priest, the sympathetic Las 
Casas, to save the more tender natives from servi- 
tude, under which they sunk. The Portuguese 
were the first traders in negroes to America, in 

* Dictionary of English History-Slavery, 



I20 B. F. WADE. 

which all the western Maritime nations had a share. 
England finally by treaty obtained a monopoly of 
this commerce by the peace of Utrecht, secured 
by " the Assiento.'' Ten years after the Somerset 
decision, Clarkson, Zachary Macaulay, father of 
Thomas Babington, and Wilberforce, moved 
against the slave trade. Pitt's aid was secured in 
1792. Effective steps were not taken till 1805 and 
1806. The heaviest blow was dealt in 1807. I^^ 
181 1 to deal in slaves was made felony and piracy, 
punished capitally in 1824. 

The English colonies politically, legally, morally 
and religiously, were a unit in the matter of negro 
slavery. Its oponents few, and had no hearing. 
Massachusetts enslaved Indians. Down to 1776, 
it is estimated that 300,000 native Africans had 
been imported into the Anglo-American colonies. 
The census of 1790, showed the number of slaves 
to be 698,000. In 1800 the slaves had increased 
to within a small fraction of 900,000. There were 
1,100,000 in 1810; 1,538,000 in 1820; in 1830, 
2,000,000; in 1840, 2,400,000. They had in- 
creased to 3,200,000 in 1850 ; in i860, to 3,952,000, 
their last enumeration. After the Revolution 
some of the southern states abolished the foreign 
slave trade, while it was maintained at the north. 
Vermont was the first to abolish slavery, which 
she did in 1777. Pennsylvania by gradual eman- 
pation in 1780, of her slaves 64 remained in 1840. 
A judgment of the supreme court ended the insti- 
tution in Massachusetts, in 1780. Rhode Island 



B. F. WADE. 121 

had five slaves in 1840, Connecticut had 17 at that 
date. New York, which had 20,000 in 1799, the 
date of her emancipation act, freed the last on the 
fourth of July, 1827. New Jersey also pursued 
the gradual process and had 236 in 1850. 

The Revolutionary patriots declared all men 
born free, and tacitly held negroes not men, and 
so not within its meaning and spirit. It was of this 
quite universal sentiment of the Revolutionary 
period, that Chief-Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott 
case, truly said: "At that time it was generally 
held that negroes had no rights that white men 
were bound to respect.^ 

The national constitution recognized slaves 
under the euphuism of "persons held to service 
in a state under the laws thereof," and pledged 
the states to their return if they fled from it, as so 
many did.*f- 

. For the purpose of representation in the national 
house of representatives, five persons thus held 
were counted as three, and congress was prohib- 
ited from legislating against the African slave 

* Nothing better shows the spirit of the slavery contest, when that 
unfortunate case was decided and since, than the fact that this senti- 
ment, excusable, perhaps, in 1776, but atrocious in 1857, attributed by 
one of the ablest and purest of American judges to the men of the pre- 
ceding century, were popularly accepted, charged upon him. as his 
sentiments, his judgtnetit of the black man's true status, on the day of 
its declaration. The old man died with this imputation strong upon his 
name and memory, and good men died believing it true. 

t It was estimated that at least thirty thousand thus held reached 
and found shelter in Canada alone, where no fugitive law or rendition 
treaty could exist. 



122 B. F. WADE. 

trade for twenty years. July of the year of the 
production of this national instrument (signed 
September 17) saw the promulgation of "the or- 
dinance of "^y'' (1787) which dedicated the great 
unknown northwest to freedom. % 

So stood this thing of slavery when the young 
states and younger nation, under its charter, en- 
tered upon their interesting career, unconsciously 
to be wrought upon by the ever active unseen 
laws of evolution, which mould politics, govern- 
ment, morals, and religion, as all organic and 
icrnoranic matter. 

At that time slavery was no way sectional. 
Thoughtful men in common everywhere vaguely 
regarded it as evil, temporary to be sure, and at 
some time in some way to be made rid of. We 
have seen the northern states dispose of it for 
themselves, also that some of the southern had 
put an end to the African slave trade, and we 
know that Mr. Jefferson and many leading south- 
ern men favored not only the ordinance of "^'j , 
but emancipation in their own states. The utter 
incompatibility of slavery with the institutions of 
a free people, resting on the declared equality of 
men by birth, so shocking to our logical sense 
now, was not then apparent. Men were too 
pressingly engaged with the devouring necessities 
confronting them on every hand, to study and 
speculate of the less obvious and seemingly remote 

J The authority of which was called in question in the Dred Scott 
case, the power to pass it by congress. 



B. F. WADE. 



123 



dangers, then not deemed possible. There was a 
continent to subdue ; many robust, strong-, free 
peoples to be made homogeneous, educated, gov- 
erned ; Indians to be dealt with ; foreign nations 
to be treated with, fought with ; cities to be built, 
rivers to be navigated, ways to be opened, com- 
merce to be created— a thousand pressing things 
to be done. Slavery was a seeming means, a 
help, and not a bale. So things went their blind 
unconscious ways, as they always do. Slavery 
became sectional. Slaveholders were homoge- 
neous. It became their bond of union. Long 
before the north was aware of its dominating 
power, even at the south it had consolidated 
that and became dictator. The great parties at 
the north were compelled to bid against each other 
for its aid. The way for it there was already pre- 
pared. The sentiment of the north was pro- 
slavery— always had been. Its conscience slept, 
had never been developed toward this thing. 
When that came to life, to seeing, and assailed 
slavery, on its hitherto most indefensible side, it 
had become too profitable to part with, too power- 
ful to be easily overthrown. It was the foundation 
and controlling element of southern civilization 
and industry. It needed but one thing more to 
become seemingly invulnerable — to be accepted 
as right in itself, approved of God, sustained by 
the Bible, accepted of his prophets and the patri- 
archs. The greatest work of slavery propagan- 
dists was in fashioning the southern conscience 



124 B. F. WADE. 

and church to this view. Enmeshed as it was in 
the constitution, constituting their property, their 
life, hope, memory and aspiration, this task was 
feasible, and in a few years effectively done. 
Rapidly and certainly with the accomplishment 
of this process, the north was also necessarily con- 
solidated. Its morals, its conscience, its political 
necessities, united it. Slavery, itself a state of 
chronic war, is by necessity aggressive, bold and 
unscrupulous. Its enemy necessarily the north. 
It can live only by plunder and outrage. As long 
as the north aided or acquiesced in its aggressions 
upon other people, semi-peace ruled the sections ; 
when it felt compelled to plunder the north, war 
was inevitable, and the more so as each party 
would conscientiously believe it was right. 

Some of the more prominent incidents scenes 
and acts of the opening of the great drama, are 
to be mentioned. 

In good faith to their national undertaking, the 
northern states passed laws for the rendition of 
escaping slaves. Slavery has been declared by 
able southern courts, a state of chronic war by the 
masters upon their slaves — a not modern doctrine 
— and thus the northern people became the active 
allies of the masters in their war upon their bond- 
men. These state laws were not satisfactory to 
the south, however, and in less than four years 
after the adoption of the constitution, and seven- 
teen after the great Declaration, congress passed 
the first fugitive slave law — the first national depar- 



B. F. WADE. 125 

ture from its preamble and bill of rights. This was 
followed sooner or later in many of the northern 
states by laws repressive of the rights of free 
blacks, glaringly by the state of Ohio, the first 
blossom of the ordinance of '87. 

Ere the passage of the fugitive law, the Quakers 
of North Carolina emancipated their slaves, which 
the state speedily reduced again to servitude. 
Slaves escaped in large numbers from Georgia 
masters to the Creeks, within the state borders. 
When the Creeks were threatened with war on 
their account, they fled to Florida, becoming 
Maroons (as the Spaniards of the West India 
islands called their runaway slaves, who main- 
tained themselves in the mountains), where unit- 
ing with runaway Indians (Seminoles), they sus- 
tained years of war to avoid recapture, first in 
18 18 and in the times of Jackson and Van Buren. 
In 1800 congress reestablished the slave code in 
the national capital. In 1803 the settlers of Indi- 
ana asked for a suspension of the ordinance of 'j^, 
to enable them to hold slaves. That year we 
purchased Louisiana, to become a slave empire, 
its far-reaching influences, a great factor in the 
destruction of slavery itself. In 1 805 a proposi- 
tion that the children of slaves born in the District 
of Columbia after that date, should be free, was 
rejected by congress. 

In 1806 we broke off commercial relations with 
San Domingo, where black slaves were in arms for 
freedom, having just closed a war with Barbary to 



126 B. F. WADE. 

free white slaves. In 1810-11 Georgia sent an 
army to Florida, a Spanish province, to capture 
the Maroons, who, combining with the Seminoles, 
drove them out. Georgia seized the afterward 
infamous Amelia Island, which from that time be- 
came the headquarters of African slave traders 
and other more honest pirates. Meantime we 
had abolished the foreign slave trade, and largely 
in the interest of the home producers of slaves, as 
it proved, a curious application of the doctrine of 
protection of home industry. 

Slavery becoming economically profitable, men 
began to find it less immoral. The trade in slaves 
at the capital became so flagrant that John Ran- 
dolph pronounced a phillipic against it on the 
floor of the house, in 18 16. The year 18 18 saw 
the first Seminole war, in which old Fort Nichols, 
where the fugitives found shelter, was blown up 
with hot shot fired into its magazine, and a few 
of the survivors were delivered to our Indian 
allies for their amusement, after known methods, 
a costly entertainment as negroes went. After 
two severe battles General Jackson retired with 
doubtful honors and small profit. Georgia then 
clamored for the acquisition of Florida itself. 

The first contest over the admission of a state 
occurred in 181 1, on the application of Louisiana. 
The opposition was violent and bitter on the part 
of some of the New England men, not so much on 
account of its characteristic slavery as that it was a 



B. F. WADE. 127 

form of foreign territory — had been a foreign pos- 
session.* 

This contest excited little popular interest. Mis- 
souri applied six years later. Her case came up 
in December, 18 18, and lasted for two years. 
The first great trial of the bands of the Union. 
Sudden and almost inexplicable was the deep, far- 
reaching excitement it caused, ending in the 
famous compromise of 1820, and followed by a 
calm, a profound apathy, as mysterious. This 
rise, long continued, furious war, and its sudden 
subsidence, are still a problem of our political his- 
tory. In this, slavery itself was the sole cause. 
The first battle was on Mr. Talmage's (from New 
York) amendment, prohibiting the further intro- 
duction of slaves, and securing the freedom of all 
slave children after a named date ; it passed both 
houses. At the next session Maine and Missouri 
both sought admission. They thus became 
united, remote as they were geographically, in the 
interests and genius of their peoples ; in the all- 
embracing arms of slavery. The contest was re- 
newed with more than the first heat. Mr. Clay, 
though speaker of the house, became the pro- 
slavery leader of the floor. The house would not 
admit the two together ; and Maine was uncon- 

* Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, a remarkably able man, took the 
ground that the admission of a foreign possession and people was a 
viitual dissolution of the Union and threatened to give this effect to it 
if persisted in. So the first threat of dissolution came from Massa- 
chusetts. The same objection was urged with much force against 
Texas later. 



128 B. F. WADE. 

ditionally received in March, 1820. An enabling 
act containing the famous dedication of all the 
Louisiana purchase north of thirty-six degrees 
thirty minutes, was passed for Missouri. Angry 
and resentful, her people complied, but inserted 
also a provision against free negroes. When this 
constitution came up in congress battle royal en- 
sued, with more than the former heat and venom. 
Twice the house rejected the constitution with this 
obnoxious provision. During the struggle the 
Maine senators. Holms and Chandler, voted stead- 
ily with the south. Finally a second compromise 
was secured, by which the Missouri legislature 
were forever prohibited from giving effect to the 
obnoxious provision. She was admitted, and this 
startling and ominous episode, as it was regarded, 
and the spirits it conjured, passed into speedy for- 
getfulness. Stephen A. Douglas was then but 
seven years old. His voice was to recall these 
spirits, the Kansas border war — the prelusive 
skirmishing of the real war, which was in the full- 
ness of time to follow — coming out of the great 
compromise. 

The next step was the purchase of Florida, in 
1 82 1, and, notwithstanding the provisions of the 
treaty with Spain for their protection, an intermin- 
able war was begun to reduce the Maroons., their 
wives and children to slavery. In 1826 came the 
second great discussion of slavery in congress, on 
a proposition to send commissioners to the new 
southern republics, who had abolished slavery. 



B. F. WADE. 129 

The south feared for the instituticfhs in Cuba and 
Porto Rico, and the remote consequences to them- 
selves. The next year saw the debate on the long 
pending controversy with England, for the slaves 
deported by her in the war of 1812. The question 
was finally referred to the Emperor of Russia, who 
good-naturedly awarded that England should pay 
the United States one million two hundred thou- 
sand dollars.^ 

We have glanced at the institution under En- 
glish dominion. Long before any agitation for 
emancipation in this country, Elizabeth Heyrick, 
a Quaker lady, published an important work in 
England entitled, ' Immediate and not Gradual 
Abolition, 't which finally produced a profound 
impression there, and led to a change of views and 
action on the part of English abolitionists. Such 
advance had then been made that upon the as- 
sembling of the reform parliament of 1832, the 
government announced its determination to bring 
in a bill for the emancipation of the slaves. The 
abolitionists demanded immediate emancipation. 
In 1833 a bill was passed abolishing slavery and 
providing for an apprenticeship of the slaves. 

* After paying all the claimants for the thus stolen slaves, there re- 
mained about one hundred and forty-one thousand dollars. Toward 
the end of the Jacksonian reign this was quietly paid to Georgia 
masters, to compensate for the children the slave mothers would have 
borne them had not the faithless things run off with the Indians ! How 
that was divided, or by what rule, I never knew. 

+ Immediate abolition has recently been deemed as the discovery 
of the late William L. Garrison, who is said also to have discovered 
Whittier, the poet. 'His Life,' by his sons, Vol. I. 



I30 B. F. WADE, 

This was disre^rded by the masters in Jamaica^ 
followed by a bloody insurrection in that land of 
slave insurrections, in which thousands were slain,, 
when parliament abolished the apprenticeship and 
slavery disappeared August 25, 1838, in all the 
British dominions. 

Things in this connection happened in the 
United States the year • following, which recalls- 
our attention to our seemingly forgotten immedi- 
ate personage who now takes, if a brief, an 
important part, his first, in the incipient contest 
on this continent. With a pro-slavery sentiment 
pervasive through the north, slavery bold, arro- 
gant, aggressive, had, as we see, then made large 
gains, rapid advance toward unquestioned suprem- 
acy in the so-called free republic. The open 
opposers of slavery were slow to appear, won few, 
and at the first unheeded, north and south. Sev- 
eral books had been published against it. Anti- 
slavery societies had long existed. Between 1820 
and 1830 several anti slavery papers were pub- 
lished, notably by Benjamin Lundy in Ohio^ 
and Baltimore, Maryland. In this last William 
Lloyd Garrison serv^ed his apprenticeship in his 
press room as in prison, and then went to Boston 
where he planted the Liberator, Hammond, in 
the Cincinnati Gazette, produced a series of strong^ 
articles against slavery. Theodore Weld had 
caused a secession of students from the Lane 
seminary, on anti-slavery grounds, and had 
lectured through the north, then a very young 



B. F. WADE. 



131 



man of remarkable powers. James G. Birney 
had arisen in Kentucky and gone north, a man of 
rare gifts and marked character. The American 
anti-slavery society had been organized and dis- 
rupted for difference of opinion as to whether, in 
a matter largely political, political action should be 
had. In 183 1 John Quincy Adams took his seat 
in congress and was soon in open war against 
slavery, on the narrow and seemingly remote issue 
of the right of petition, logical only because the 
illy advised slaveholders elected that issue. Mr. 
Adams was at the beginning no abolitionist,, 
might never have become one had not the war 
made by them on the right of petition compelled 
him to be one, born warrior that he was. He 
alway opposed the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia until it should disappear in 
Maryland and Virginia. That same year occurred 
Nat. Turner's bloody insurrection in South Hamp- 
ton, Virginia, followed by many pro-slavery riots 
at the north. Indeed, to begin with, the entire 
north had to be first conquered from slavery to 
freedom. The conquest, in fact, never was com- 
pleted while slavery anywhere existed, and it left 
many mourners there, over what, to them, seemed 
its untimely demise. 

We have noted the early action of the Ohio 
legislature in favor of slavery. This was followed 
by various acts which together' came to be called 
the black laws.* 

*The first act was in 1804. This required every black or mulatto, before- 



132 B. F. WADE. 

These together, the shame and reproach of the 
young state, were not satisfactory to Kentucky 
and Virginia, the south. There was the memory 
of South Hampton, the recent bloody insurrections 
of Jamaica and Demarara. England had abolished 
slavery in all her dominions, and notwithstanding 
actual murder, bloody riots, and burnings at the 
north, an anti-slavery sentiment was increasing 
there. The slave trade had actually been pre- 
sented by a grand jury of the District of Columbia. 
Ohio was now in the hands of the Democrats, and 
she at least should be asked for additional safe- 
guards and pledges. She was asked for them, and 
the most humiliating incident of her history is to 
here find brief mention. She readily rendered 

he could reside in the state, to file with the clerk of the county of his 
intended abode a certificate of a court of record of the state whence he 
came, that he was free. This act also authorized claimants of runaway 
slaves to make summary proof before any judge or justice of the peace 
that a named person was an escaping slave, when a warrant was to 
issue to the sheriff of the county, who was to sieze and dehver him up 
to the claimant, to be returned. First Chase's Statutes j6j. Two 
years later this was supplemented by an act requiring all colored per- 
sons, before they could be permitted to remain in the state, to give a 
bond with two good sureties, conditional for their good behavior, and 
that they should be maintained, with stringent provisions against 
harboring fugitives. There was a section making blacks and mulattoes 
incompetent as witnesses in any case, civil or criminal, where a white 
person was a party. Chase Id. 555. To the credit of the supreme 
■court of Ohio, it should be stated that it held all persons with more 
white than black blood, white for all purposes, 4 O. R. 353, 11 Id. 
372, 12 Id. 237, Wright 578. All blacks were excluded from the 
public schools by act of 1831, 3 Chase Id. p. 1872 ; they were pre- 
cluded from lawfully becoming paupers by act of the same year, Id. 
p. 1832. 



B. F. WADE. 133 

what was asked of her. Mr. Wade was of the 
young Whig party, j 

In the fall of 1837, ^^ stated, he was elected to 
the Ohio senate by the Whigs, nominated without 
his knowledge or consent. He was then, as will 
be remembered, thirty-seven years old. The state 
was temporarily largely Democratic, both houses 
of the " General Assembly" overwhelmingly so. 
Though one of the youngest members, he was at 
once placed on the judiciary committee, then the 
most important committee of the senate. At that 
time divorces were obtained by legislative action. 
A report of Mr. Wade's on this subject put an 
end to this practice. This was the day of roads, 
canals, really inter-state improvements by state 
action — transitional period from old to new meth- 
ods — and the financial collapse of that year (of 
which the reader has been reminded) led the 
people to look to the structure of public works as 
a source of relief They clamored to have the 
state at once enter upon a wild scheme in that 
fatal field of municipal enterprise. The sagacious 

f While the patriots of the Revolution called themselves Whigs — 
the name of their English friends (derived from Scotland, first in 
derision by their enemies, who m turn were called Torys, a term of 
reproach derived from Irish outlaws), the name Whig was adopted by 
the young National Republicans of New York in 1834, who then sup- 
ported young William L. Seward (who was a year younger than 
Wade) for governor of New York, but was then defeated by Marcy. 
The name was at once adopted by all opponents of the Jackson-Van 
Buren Loco Foco party (except the anti-Mason), then beginning to call 
themselves Democrats. Three-fourths of the voters of the Western 
Reserve were Whigs. 



[34 



B. F. WADE. 



senator from Ashtabula opposed it with great 
vigor, as did several of his colleagues in both 
houses from his section. At that day the Western 
Reserve was as broadly marked from the rest of 
the state as was the north from the south at any 
period of our history. The measure prevailed. 
Mr. Wade suffered for his opposition, and the 
state suffered deeply because of the failure of his 
efforts. 

Quite his first action was to secure the passage 
of a resolution against the annexation of the new 
republic of Texas, which passed the Ohio Demo- 
cratic senate unanimously.''^ 

During the second session of Mr. Wade's term, 
in the winter of 1838-9, came the Kentucky 
commissioners, created by her legislature, and 
commissioned by her governor.f They came to 
secure the passage of a more vigorous and 
stringent fugitive slave law, although it had been 
shown that it was with the utmost difficulty that 

* We are to hear much of this. Texas was first occupied by an Amer- 
ican colony under a grant to Austin of Connecticut, in 1823. The col- 
ony was attached to Coahula and governed with gross injustice, ex- 
clusively by Mexican methods. The first outbreak was against the 
state, and fully justified. The battle of San Jacinto was fought April 
21, 1836. The United States acknowledged the existence of the Re- 
public, as an independent state, in March 1837. The project of its 
annexation to the United States became at once a burnittg question. 
It dictated policies, nominated and defeated Presidents, and was with 
the agitations consequent of the purchase of Louisiana, the immediate 
active cause of a destruction of the institution it was to perpetuate. 

-i-Mr Moorhead (afterward a Whig senator) and Price a Demo- 
crat. 



B. F. WADE. 



135 



the existing- laws could be executed, as they 
rarely were. 

The utmost good feeling had until recently 
prevailed between the people of the two states. 
They had fought the Indians together, and Ohio 
was grateful for the aid of gallant Kentucky, 
when invaded by Brock, Proctor and her own 
Indian son, the greater Tecumseh, in 18 12-13. 
Indeed, most of the men of that day of peril and 
blood not slain in battle or massacred by the foe, 
were yet in vigorous life. Recently, however, 
several slave-hunting cases had arisen in Ohio, of 
■doubtful character — doubtful as to the real status 
of the alleged fugitives and the means of capture, 
— which had .disturbed the otherwise pleasant, 
relations of two peoples. 

The Kentucky commissioners were received 
with open arms by the majority of the two houses. 
In the senate buf five opposed their wishes. Mr. 
Wade was quite the most determined as the 
ablest of these. They could only debate, delay 
and obstruct. The courtly Moorhead and col- 
league waited upon the senator from Ashtabula, 
and in moving — quite pathetic terms — laid before 
him the tender and benignant character of the 
institution in Kentucky, where the slaves were 
barely servants, and treated more like children, 
yet would run away. Mr. Wade thought there 
must be some inexplicable mystery in this, when 
such a docile race sought every opportunity to 
escape from such parental love and tenderness. 



136 B. F. WADE. 

He had decided objections to becoming a slave 
hunter and baiHff, and asked if gentlemen like 
themselves ever engaged in the business in Ken- 
tucky. Moorhead admitted the}^ did not. Price 
laughed and told his colleague that the northerner 
had him at disadvantage. "No," said the indig- 
nant native of the Feeding Hills, "you send 
your drivers rough and desperate to decoy, steal 
and kidnap them, and were I master here, every 
man of them should be placed in irons, and our 
people spared the pain and terror of their pres- 
ence." It was in this spirit he met the bill. He 
assailed it when reported from the committee in 
all forms, details and provisions. It is to be 
.remembered there was then no source or supply 
of anti-slavery arguments. The place of the 
Democratic legislative caucus was in a large upper 
room of the Ton Tine coffee house, on the main 
street of Columbus. An elevated Whig member 
of the house, in his exhilaration on the floor one 
day, irreverently called it Tin Pan, and so it was 
ever after known. The bill was '' tin panned,'"^ 

*Of Tin Pan, after the production of a batch of new judges, in 1839 
40, the following yVw d' esprit had wide circulation: 
Our vulgar English verb— create 
Means really this and no more, 
Nor less in fact— it is to make 
Things, of what nothing was before. 

This power, as said, don't dwell with man— 

That's mistake, it dwells mTin Pan ; 
I prove it maugre all your grudges, 
By its act of making judges. 



B. F. WADE. 137 

and came up for final action in the senate at 9 a. 
M. of the twenty-first of February, 1839. Those 
were working-day times. It was passed in the 
form it then wore — a bill of fourteen sections 
alleged to have been prepared in Kentucky. It 
began with an elaborate whereas, glorifying the 
compromises of the constitution and asserting the 
duty of Ohio in the premises as one "reaping the 
largest measure of benefits conferred by the con- 
stitution, to recognize to their fullest extent the 
obligation it imposes," etc. 

The minor provisions authorized the pursuing 
party, before any judge, justice or mayor, to swear 
out a warrant for the arrest of any alleged fugitive 
addressed to any sheriff or constable, whose duty 
it was to arrest the party anywhere in the state 
and return him before the officer issuing or some 
other judge, justice or mayor most convenient. 
It secured to the claimant sixty days to prepare 
for the hearing — no delay to the captured, who 
meantime was to be committed to the county 
jail. The hearing was summary, without a iury, 
and the warrant of the court authorized a removal 
to the state whence escape was made. Every- 
body was prohibited from interfering, or consult- 
ing as to means of interference with the pursuit, 
and from harboring, concealing or in any way 
aiding the pursued, or any fugitive, under severe 
penalties.! 

The session ran from the morning of the twenty- 

\ See act of February 26, 1836/37 Vol. Stats, of Ohio, page 38. 



138 B. F. WADE. 

first into the morning of the twenty-third. After 
midnight of the last hours, Senator Powers ot 
Akron arose and deHvered a strong, bold, vigor- 
ous, manly speech against the bilLJ 

It was two o'clock when Wade arose, weary but 
determined, to conclude the opposition to the bill. 
From this, as reported, I quote to show specimens 
of his then style of dealing with grave subjects, as 
well as the spirit, courage, firmness with which he 
confronted the greatest issue of his country of any 
time. The details of the bill, as stated, had been 
discussed at its earlier stages. This was a final 
assault from the high and broad ground of large 
fundamental opposition. He began with a rapid 
sketch of the course of the majority, the efforts of 
its opponents in good faith to relieve it of some of 
its worst features by amendments. "In sullen 
silence you voted them down. No friend of the bill 
deigned to raise his voice in its defense." He 
then spoke of the treatment by the majority ex- 
tended to its friends, obsequious to give them every 
opportunity, and churlishly denying every courtesy 
of needed opportunity, to its opponents to debate 
it. 

X Gregory Powers was worthy to stand, as he did, with the best 
men of Ohio. I never saw his speech. It was widely spoken of as a 
noble effort of manly argument and indignant eloquence. He was then 
not more than thirty-four, tall, dark, black-browed, one of the most 
promising men of the state. He died early. As was told us, the 
younger, he was compelled to argue a heavy case, with a severe cold 
upon his lungs, and died of the effects. I am glad to add this note 
to the memory of Gregory Powers. 



B. F. WADE. 139 

Such are the contemptible expedients resorted to by you to silence 
discussion upon this infamous bill of pains and penalties. It shall 
not avail you. I stand here at two o'clock of the night, after a con- 
tinuous session since nine of yesterday morning, and though I speak 
to ears that are deaf, and hearts impervious to right, justice and lib- 
erty, I will be heard, although from the servile policy manifested by 
the majority on this floor, I have no hope of arresting this measure— 
a measure which shall ere long stamp its supporters with deeper in- 
famy than did the alien and sedition laws their inventors. Like the 
heroes of old. the champions of the bill, before taking up the gauntlet 
in its defense, have prefaced their remarks with a history of their own 
births, habits and educations. As I suspected, they were born in the 
murky atmosphere of slavery, or of parents who were. Were I to fol- 
low their examples, and speak of so unimportant a subject as myself, 
I would say I was born in a land where the system of slavery was un- 
known, where the councils of the nation were swayed by the great 
principles of equity, where right and justice were deemed the highest 
expediency. My infancy was rocked in the cradle of universal liberty. 
My parents were of the Revolution ; their earliest lesson taught me was 
to respect the rights of others, and defend my own, to resist oppression 
to the death ; neither do nor suffer wrong ; do to others as I would 
they should do to me, and though my venerable instructors have long 
since passed away, the God-like principles they taught me can never 
die. 

This elevated strain he pursued for some space, 
rapidly sketching the great genesis of free institu- 
tions of this country, and bringing into relief the 
startling departure from them that found expres- 
sion in the measure under consideration. He 
made forcible reference to the ordinance of '%j^ 
which dedicated the entire northwest to freedom, 
— freedom for all, forbidding slavery in all forms. 
He spoke of the great expectations of the great 
wise men who declared this purpose. 

Dare you disappoint them, and with them the hopes of the world ? 
Did they intend you should become the mean apologists of slavery, 
throw down these barriers against its encroachments, built up with 
such cautious care. Make the state its great hunting ground, and 



[40 



F. WADE. 



this to reassert a title in human flesh, which the laws of God, of nature, 
your constitution, alike refuse to recognize. To affirm that these great 
men intended this is to pronounce upon them the foulest Ubel. Yet 
such is your argument. While I have a seat on this floor, am a citi- 
zen of this state — nay, until the laws of nature and nature's God are 
changed — 1 will never recognize the right of one man to hold his fellow, 
man a slave. I lothe, I abhor the accursed system, nor shall my 
tongue belie my heart. 

Proceeding then to admit that slaveholders for 
the time were safe behind their state barriers — " I 
ought not to disturb them there. There let them 
remain and cherish and hug the odious system to 
their hearts, as long as they can brave the focus 
of public opinion of the nineteenth century. " He 
taunted Kentucky with her pusillanimous position. 
Yesterday haughty, arrogant, calling "hands off;" 
to-day imploring help to catch her runaways. He 
would not thus become party to her great crime, 
would in no way aid in sustaining her in it. 
"Kentucky no longer asked you to let slavery 
alone, but to become active agents in its support. 
Mr. Speaker,* do you approve of slavery? Let 
me answer for you — *No.' Would you deal in 
slaves? *No.' Is it right to deprive a man of 
his liberty? 'No.' Can you conscientiously, by 
your legislation, aid in doing all this? Yes, Mr. 
Speaker, I know you will. I know your servility." 

Kentucky, he went on to say, having solicited 
our aid in support of slavery, would by this act be 
estopped from charging us with unwarranted in- 
terference if we should hereafter ask her to relieve 

*The president of the senate— Joe Hawkins, at that time— was 
cafted the speaker, and as such signed himself. 



B. F. IVADE. 



141 



US of the abominable burden, by the abatement 
of the nuisance. This idea he worked up with 
effect. He warned her not to make up an issue 
on slavery with Ohio, and especially not to put 
trust in this bill. ''As a friend of Kentucky, as 
a lover of truth and fair dealing, one who despises 
deception, and who has some knowledge of the 
people of the state, I declare here, and now, in my 
place, your law will be of no validity, it will remain 
a dead letter on the 'statute book. With the 
frankness of honest and honorable men, you should 
have declared this to the agents of Kentucky. Sir, 
your legislation is mean, deceptive, unworthy the 
dignity of this state, and you know it to be so." 
He asked, demanded, if. the senators would aid in 
the execution of the law. "Dare you make a law 
which no decent man will execute ?" he demanded 
further. He drew a strong picture of a community, 
once free, who should become so abject and craven, 
that an act of the character of the qne under con- 
sideration could be executed in their midst. He 
took higher— the highest ground, which he rever- 
ently approached— the ''higher law," as it later 
was derisively called. "No one has yet com- 
pared your bill with the paramount laws. The 
subject has not been broached. Should your bill be 
found conflicting with their provisions, it will not 
only be void, but we must answer for consequences. 
You cannot violate these laws with impunity. If 
you oppress the weak and defenseless, no power 
can shield you from the consequences ; the evil 



142 B. F. WADE. 

will recoil upon your heads, upon the heads of 
your children, to the third and fourth generation. 
Such is the order of nature — the will of God. The 
neglect of this great truth has filled the earth with 
violence and crime, from the first ages to this day. 
You can not deprive a man of his liberty, however 
lowly and weak, without endangering your own. 
The practice of tyranny becomes habitual, weakens 
the sense of justice, respect for the rights of others, 
stimulates the malignant passions, engenders 
pride, renders a man helpless, dependent ; is 
scarcely less fatal to the oppressor than to the op- 
pressed. The influence of this example will re- 
main when we are forgotten, to influence unborn 
generations and jeopardize the well-being of pos- 
terity. " 

He pursued this high theme at length, and drew 
this distinction between man's enactment and the 
laws of God. The first may be evaded, the latter 
execute themselves — the penalty inexorable. In 
the light of this code he proceeded to a careful 
analysis of the principles of the bill, especially the 
provisions denouncing penalties for acts of charity 
to the fleeing, famished fugitive from slavery. It 
had been urged that the comity of states required 
this act in behalf of Kentucky. To this he replied, 
comity could never require a mean, base or tyran- 
nical act. In handling Kentucky's claim to our 
consideration, he cited with great effect several 
recent outrages of the Kentucky agents and 
authorities on citizens of Ohio, among them the 



B. F. WADE. 143 

once well-known case of Eliza Johnson and John 
B. Mahan. 

His discussion of the constitutional question, then 
comparatively new and fresh, was remarkably 
able, and his handling of authorities admirable. 
His plea for trial by jury, to settle the status of a 
claimed slave, has been rarely surpassed. He 
read a notable case from New Jersey supporting 
his view, and concluded that point in these words : 

Does not the constitution of Ohio, equally with that of New Jersey, 
guarantee trial by jury ? Are you dumb? Thank God a crouching, 
time-serving legislation is not the last resort, else freedom in this state 
would find a grave before this session closes. But the doings of this 
night must pass in open day a sterner trial, before they can be made 
effectual, and you may read their doom in the case I have just cited. 

"The night is far advanced," he said. *'The 
measure under consideration by its friends is 
adjudged more congenial with darkness," and he 
went on for three columns more, to batter it and 
them out of the little remaining semblance of 
legislation and law-makers left to them. The 
threat of dissolution by the south was then chronic. 
He defied them to execute it. 

His speech, like all complete work, needs to be 
taken entire. No quotation can do it justice ; no 
description realize its force and effect to the 
reader, or any reading give its effect as delivered. 
On going over with it now, one is surprised to 
see how little has since been really added to this 
great argument against slavery. It stands as one 
of the ablest legislative speeches of the state. It 
was amongst the ablest delivered against slavery. 



144 . B. F. WADE. 

The whole subject was then new and fresh. It 
was a long stride in advance of public opinion, 
even on the Reserve. It was widely printed and 
read, and became one of the sources of education, 
argument and influence, ere the great anti-slavery 
cause was well in the milk — so to say of it. 

Mr. Wade, as before said, was nominated for 
reelection at the October state election, 1839. 
His district had a Whig majority of four thousand. 
He was defeated by a majority of sixty, by the 
Democrat, Benjamin Bissell of Geauga, who was 
soon to press after him on the same side in the 
anti-slavery struggle. Whatever may be said, 
this result was due entirely to his course on the 
pro-slavery bill. As already stated, the entire 
north was steeped in pro-slavery sentiment, every 
rood of which had to be literally conquered to the 
cause of freedom. The work was rapidly accom- 
plished on the Reserve, and when, two years later, 
Mr. Wade was again placed before the people for 
the senate, no one thought of seriously opposing 
him. 

I may, in anticipation, mention that this speech 
of Mr. Wade, and that of Mr. Powers, under the 
aroused sense of right, acting on the state pride 
of the Ohio people, made the Kentucky act utterly 
odious. No case ever arose under it. No man 
of the south had the hardihood to seek its enforce- 
ment on a soil in which it perished at once. As 
Wade said, in the dimly lighted old senate cham- 
ber, full of bad air, foul breaths, and mephitic 



B, F. WADE. 145 

vapor, it was a snare to the slaveholders, and the 
leaves of the Ohio statute book became its winding- 
sheet, where it was laid dead from its birth. The 
state improvement act was also short-lived. The 
two were not lovely in such lives as were theirs, 
and they were not widely separated in their timely 
deaths — way-marks of the momentary weakness 
and folly of a great young people on their way to 
the van of the republic, where their lead was to be 
wise and their deportment modest. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Harrison Campaign of 1840. — Underestimate of it. — Political Parties 
and Leaders. — Whig National Convention, December 4, 1839.- 
Democratic, May 5, 1840. — Issues. — Thomas Corwin. — Result. — 
Birney's Vote — ^J. R. Giddings Enters Twenty-sixth Congress. — 
Death of President Harrison — Censure of Adams — Giddings. — 
Texas. — Election of 1844. — Henry Clay. — Birney's Vote. — Election 
of 1848.— Free-soil Party.— Vote for Van Buren. — Mr. Giddings 
Nominated for the Senate. — Mr. Chase Elected. — Ohio Legislature. 
— Compromises of 1850-51.— Fall o niel Webster. — Fugitive 

Slave Act Denounced by Judge Wade. 

Having passed the great cataclysm caused b 
slavery, being able now by the broad light of per- 
fected events to examine and estimate the influence 
and significance of the first signs of the rise and 
steady progress of the anti-slavery cause until its 
revolution of politics, and the industry and civili- 
zation of one hemisphere of this Republic, histor- 
ically we deem no intervening events of the least 
importance. We have seen the awakening of the 
forces that are to overturn existing institutions and 
change the configuration of the Republic, and are 
impatient of everything that seeks to withdraw us 
from their process, and the process of events im- 
pelled by them. True, from 1840 to 1861 are 
twenty-one long — or short — years as we estimate 



B. F. WADE. 147 

them. Short to those who deplore the change — 
long to those who prayed, hoped, fought for its 
consummation. In these years the struggles, the 
politics, the rise and rule of parties, the elections 
and policies of Presidents are of no possible im- 
portance, save as they influence the great thing that 
was to be. In the grand onward march of the 
ages — the centuries — this is very true. When we 
turn our eyes backward to earliest historic events, 
the perspective of time is entirely lost. Its se- 
quence cannot be apprehended. The great old 
ages seem to march abreast and confront us in a 
mass. The centuries loom on us in groups — as if 
contemporary. We forget that all of them, all 
time, have marched, filtered through the narrow 
succession of days in grains of sand, from the first to 
the present, that we never have seen two days come 
at the same time. Each has delivered to its suc- 
cessor all it had that survived it. In our gaze 
backward whole centuries have sunk from our vis- 
ion, leaving things wide apart standing side by side. 
We may not pause to grow sad over the utter in- 
significance of all human labor and achievements, 
which such retrospect and reflection might cause. 
There may be nothing really great or small in the 
history of individuals or nations. All may be es- 
sentially of the same size. No matter — the events 
of each day are of importance to it, to the busy 
men who toil and perspire under its sun, and we 
cannot afford to permit these twenty-one years of 
our life and time to disappear from even this slight 



148 B. F. WADE. 

memoir. Great men, on the upper and thinner 
growing crust, beneath which the great forces were 
storing their might, were laboring on questions of 
issues and pohcies which have survived the cata- 
clysm, and in some form entered into the great 
campaign of 1884, as into the greater campaign of 
1840, which must have a passing word — several 
words, I fear. 

It was the mission of the Federalist to construct, 
invent, create, adopt the constitution, elect, or- 
ganize and set the new government on in a health- 
ful, vigorous, successful career. Had he but the 
capacity, with his prestige, to adopt new ideas and 
work them into governmental processes, he would 
have remained at the helm. None but a man of 
progress can govern a progressive people. The 
Democrat of to-day has shown this capacity, and 
is now ruler. If he gives the Republic a better 
government, on substantially the Republican basisj 
than did its inventors, he will remain there for a 
time. The Federalist was unequal to the new 
demands, and disappeared, as did the later Whig, 
and for the same reason. Mr. Jefferson's task was 
to correct the tendencies of Federalists, place the 
barque more directly with the Republican current, 
and give fuller effect to Democratic influences, 
though to claim him as the founder of the present 
Democratic party is absurd. That was more the 
work of Andrew Jackson. No two prominent 
Americans were ever more dissimilar than Jeffer- 
son and Jackson. Their only resemblance was — 



B. F. WADE. 149 

they were both demagogues. For the rest they 
contrast. 

Mr. Madison fought the war, and though on 
the whole we were worsted in it, we made vast 
gains by it. 

Andrew Jackson destroyed the national bank. 
Whether that was a good or a bad thing is still 
debatable. Whichever it was, the task was wholly 
his. So he introduced the feature of personal gov- 
ernment — was the government pretty much. He 
originated the causes which in action overwhelmed 
his successor. 

To Mr. Van Buren is due the credit of separat- 
ing the government wholly from the banks. Mr. 
Jackson removed the national deposits from the 
national bank, and dividing he placed the public 
monies with the state banks. Mr. Van Buren in- 
vented the independent treasury — "sub-treasury" 
it was called — still the method of holding and dis- 
bursing the revenues. It was one of the potent 
causes of his overthrow, which, added to those he 
inherited, were too strong for him. The bank 
influence was largely with the administration while 
it employed the state banks. It was quite unani- 
mously against him when he placed the public 
money in the vaults of his own treasurer. 

Mr. Seward was defeated by Mr. Marcy in 1834. 
Mr. Seward defeated Mr. Marcy in 1838, prophetic 
of Mr. Van Buren 's fortune two years later. A 
Whig national convention assembled at Harrisburg, 
December 4, 1839, to nominate for the Presidential 



50 



B. F. WADE. 



election the ensuing year. General Harrison had 
made a splendid run, " mostly on his own hook," 
in 1836. Largely it was the wish, as well as the 
expectation, that Mr. Clay should be, named. 
Many Whigs had been followers of General Jack- 
son, and in no event would vote for him. They 
called themselves Conservatives — the first appear- 
ance of that now odious term in our political nomen- 
clature, of whom Senator Tallmage was the head. 
Miigiviwips these would be now called. Twenty- 
two states were present by delgates at Harrisburg. 
Three names were placed before them, Mr. Clay, 
General Harrison and General Scott, all three 
natives of Virginia. On the first ballot 103 votes 
were cast for Mr. Clay, 94 for Harrison, and 57 
for Scott. On the last ballot, taken on the third 
day of the ardent but perfectly friendly contest, 
Harrison received 148, Clay 90, Scott 16. With 
Harrison was placed John Tyler, also a Virginian. 
Mr. Clay, in advance, gave the most cordial assur- 
ance of whole-hearted support of the nominee, be 
he whom he might. He redeemed it in the most 
effective manner. A Whig electoral ticket w^as 
placed in the field in every state but South Caro- 
lina, whose legislature cast her vote. 

Mr. Van Buren was nominated at Baltimore, 
May 5, 1840. One branch of the Abolitionists, 
under the lead of Myron Hawley, placed James 
G. Birney, then of Michigan, also in nomination — 
of which more hereafter. 

Generally, the policy and course of the whole 



B. F, WADE. 151 

Jackson party and administration were broadly in 
isssue. There had been many frauds, peculations 
and defalcations. There was the Seminole war, 
and the proposed Cuba bloodhounds as foreign 
mercenaries. The declared issues, formally taken, 
were upon the veto power, which had been exer- 
cised more times by the self-willed Jackson than 
by all his predecessors.* Mr. Van Buren, though 
his supporters were in the minority in the tw^enty- 
fifth congress, had not employed it at all. Then 
there was the great issue of the currency, which 
involved banking and the sub-treasury, a protec- 
tive tariff, internal improvements and the public 
lands. Slavery — even under the head of Texas 
— found no place, nor could the Liberty (or third) 
party force an issue with either of the great parties, 
save under the right of petition, an issue wrought 
out by Mr. Adams. This in some sections was 
effectively used, especially on the Reserve, by 
Mr. Wade and Mr. Giddings, then in the house, 
against the Democrats, who were the offending 
party in this matter, so that incidentally the insti- 
tution directly suffered. 

A notable theme was the famous New^ Jersey 
"Broad Seal" election case, of the twenty-fifth 
congress. The house consisted of one hundred 
and eighteen administration men to one hundred 
and nineteen opposition of all sorts. After along 
contest R. M. T. Hunter, an Independent Demo- 
crat, was elected speaker. Of the six New Jersey 

* Written before the present use of the veto. 



152 



B, F. WADE. 



claimants of seats all brought the same evidence 
of right, under the broad seal of the state. Of 
these, the ex-clerk, who made up the list and 
called the house, on the initial day of the congress 
excluded five, which was the final award of the 
organized house. It was during the chaos occa- 
sioned by the contest that Mr. Adams early arose, 
made a motion which the clerk refused to entertain, 
and he put it himself, declared it carried — himself 
became chairman by common consent of the body 
in its transition from raw units to the firm ground 
of a parliamentary house, contemplated by the 
constitution. 

Unfortunately for both parties — for the history 
of the time, perhaps — some illy-advised Democrat 
ridiculed the person, life and habits of General 
Harrison, a man of pure life, exalted character, an 
accomplished civilian, and one of the ablest com- 
manders of raw troops of our history, though it 
must be conceded that his soldiers were of the 
finest material in the raw that ever followed an 
intrepid leader. He was said to be a weak-minded 
garrulous old man, living in a log-cabin, and 
solacing the straitened twilight of life with hard 
cider. The child then unborn rued the scurrilous 
libel. The men of the west who had fought under 
him, whose wives and daughters, in their absence 
defended their cabins against Indian forays, took 
it up with a flash. They ignited the continent 
with their indignant enthusiasm. Log-cabins with 
the coon pelt nailed to it, hard cider barrels 



B. F. WADE. 



53 



pictured in every fashion and color on banner and 
flag, borne in endless processions, became the 
emblem of the battle, the badges of the party. 
All the poetic and rhyming talent of the country 
became inspired, and poured from every quarter 
a swollen, mingled tide of rhymed sarcasm, wit, 
humor and coarse ribald blackguardism upon Mr. 
Van Buren and his supporters. There were 
occasional gleams of wit, real humor and touches 
of poetry. The words, set to simple airs, 'were 
sung from Canada to Mexico, from the Atlantic 
to the remotest march of the westward-going 
immigrant. Literally, the administration was 
sung and stung to death. 

All of these were but the bubbles, the foam of 
the wide, deep ocean, lashed by a real storm. 
That was a period of exceptionally able — of great 
men, never more than twice equaled, and never 
surpassed in our annals. All the political talent, 
knowledge and skill of the country were called 
into action and marshaled on both sides — not to 
sing songs, march in processions, and on one side 
guzzle hard cider. The whole of that liquid in 
the country, a fixed quantity at the most, if put 
in real requisition, would have been exhausted in 
the first month of the campaign. There was an 
able, exhaustive and exhausting discussion, not 
only of the policy, measures and conduct of the 
administration, but of the great principles of the 
government itself. It was the first great popular 
discussion of them — never equaled since. What- 



154 B. F. WADE. 

ever may have been the direct gain by the labors 
■of the Whig orators and writers, who made the 
onset, and maintained an aggressive war from the 
first to the last, indirectly the gain in the educa- 
tion of the people — apt pupils as they were — was 
■of incalculable benefit permanently. 

The campaign opened on the Reserve in mid- 
winter, with mass meetings at nearly all the. 
county-seats, at which popular speeches were 
made, denunciatory, hortatory and argumentative 
— the first introduced in that part of the state — or 
anywhere north, among men of New England 
origin, and then first and generally called stump 
speeches.* 

Frank Wade, as we saw, won his spurs as a 
political speaker in the Ohio senate the winter be- 
fore. A great state mass convention of the Whigs 
was holden at Columbus the tw^enty-second of Feb- 
ruary, 1840, at which he was one of the principal 
speakers. Four great Whig state mass meetings 
were early holden in Ohio, at which General Har- 
rison was present. The first on the site of Camp 
Meigs, May 4, which continued three or four days, 
commemorative of the siege by Tecumseh and 



* The term, as the practice, originated in Kentucky, where the out- 
door orator usually spoke from the top of that part of a tree remaining 
in the earth where it grew, after it had been felled with axes. The 
term soon came to mean any and all addresses of a political character, 
and is now thoroughly Anglicized in England as in this country. 
Stormonth's dictionary (Eng.), Webster, Worcester, et a/.— another 
instance of the almost sole mode of the accession of entirely new words 
to the language— adoption bv custom from pure slang. 



B. F. WADE. 



155 



Proctor, of May, 181 3. One was also holden at 
Erie, September 10, an anniversary of Perry's sea 
fight, of the same year, at which time and place 
the Democrats held a rival convention.* 

Thomas Corwin was the Whig candidate for 
governor of Ohio, and accompanied by Thomas 
Ewing, visited the Reserve in May.f 

Mr. Wade took rank in that great canvass with 
the best speakers of Ohio, and was second to but 
very few in the thoroughness of his information, 
and the rather rude vigor with which he handled 
the great variety of subjects dealt with, in the 
wide range of topic and mode of treatment, char- 
acteristic of the contest. 

From the first there were signs unmistakable of 
the result. The W^higs could that year have 
elected Mr. Clay, General Scott or almost any 
candidate. There was never in the history of our 

*At the Democratic stand the writer first saw and heard James Bu- 
chanan and John W. Forney. He was very favorably impressed by the 
first. Forney was then a very young man. 

fThat was the year of Corwin's famous reply to " the late Mr. Crary " 
of Michigan, as John Quincy Adams called him in the house, a few 
days later. I first heard him at Ravenna, of that May. In the Lin- 
coln campaign of i860, I was one of a party, including Columbus De- 
lano, Benjamin F. Stanton and others, who attended Mr. Corwin sev- 
eral days through the interior of Ohio ; saw and heard a great deal of 
him at the capital, later ; was present at the supper party, and one of 
the group of Garfield and others listening to his flow of story when 
smitten of paralysis. I have heard very many of the good American 
speakers of my time ; have read nearly all the best published of the 
English and Irish. I believe Thomas Corwin at his best, the rarest or- 
ator who ever spoke the language, and for varied excellence in every 
range, never surpassed by the speaker of any tongue— of any age or 
time. 



156 B. F. WADE. 

popular politics so much and such widespread 
excitement, agitation and popular enthusiasm. 
The conditions and material for its parallel can 
probably never again exist in such proportions. 
The success of the Whigs was almost fatal to the 
party. At each successive Presidential election it 
attempted to arouse the same wide, deep, popular 
enthusiasm by the use of the same devices and 
methods which were the effect, the product, of the 
agitation of 1840 — the forms, utterance, in which 
that spontaneously expressed itself. "We felt 
good in 1849," said a melancholy and disap- 
pointed Whig leader, upon the nomination of Tay- 
lor, during this last year, "and we want to feel 
good again." Alas! first love is but for once, 
and the very youthful. 

Of the electoral votes. General Harrison re- 
ceived two hundred and thirty-four. Van Buren 
sixty. I 

X Mr. Van Buren had a curious personal connection with the war of 
1812-13, on the northern and western frontier. He was the special 
judge-advocate appointed from civil life, and prosecuted the unfortu- 
nate General Hull for his failure in the first campaign, tried by court 
martial at Albany early in 1814. His final address, extemporized by 
special permission of the court, was never reported and published, at 
least it is not found in the official report published soon after. Hull 
was defended in a masterly manner by Harrison Gray Otis, as will be 
remembered. His summing up, reduced to writing, and read by the 
accused as the rule was, is a masterly performance. 

A few months later, Mr. Van Buren was also appointed to prosecute 
General Wilkinson, tried for failure on the Niagara frontier. General 
Dearborn was president of both courts. When the special judge-ad- 
vocate presented himself to enter upon his duties, he was met by a mo- 
tion from the accused to exclude him, which on a full argument was 
sustained. ' Wilkinson's Memoirs,' Volume HI, page 15. 



B. F. WADE. 157 

The popular recoil against the successful Whigs 
for a time overwhelmed them. They never did 
recover. Even Corwin was defeated for governor 
in 1842, and the party was everywhere forced 
back. True, General Harrison died, and Mr. 
Tyler vetoed their national bank bills in all forms. 
At the extra session and later they made an 
honest effort to redeem all their pledges and, save 
in the instance of the bank enactment, passed all 
their measures. Had General Harrison lived, the 
result would have been the same. No set of men 
could have met and satisfied the popular expecta- 
tion, which was fittingly expressed by the popular 
formula — " Two dollars a day and roast beef" — 
for the most ordinary laborer. One should fully 
understand the years of chronic depression and 
rates of wages of that time to appreciate the 
irony of this saying, invented by the Democrats 
and placed in the mouths of Whig demagogues, 
neither few^ or over-scrupulous. 

In turning to resume the sketchy thread of the 
incipient struggle against dominant slavery, in 
which the great contest of 1840 is a pure episode, 
I am tempted to say generally that when in the 
progress of a people or state the time is ripe for 
an advance in mechanics, science, politics or art, 
the thing to be done often suggests itself to sev- 
eral who then happen to be in the van of the re- 
quired movement, and there are many contests as 
to the real discoverer, mover, leader. Were it 
not for this general tendency, which may detect 



158 B. F. WABE. 

contemporaneously, the thing itself would not 
gain recognition, and so secure accomplishment. 
A discovery, however intrinsically valuable, which 
the men of the time cannot appreciate, remains as 
a thing practically hidden. 

Savonarola, whose life and fate are the most 
pathetic of modern history, found his age adverse, 
and he and his work perished. Luther was one 
of the many, yet the force which bore him on 
spent itself ere what the Protestant world deems 
complete success, was accomplished — the over- 
throw and extinction of the Romish church. Peace! 
the world could not then nor now be governed 
without it. 

To claim the arousing and marshaling of the 
force of the mind and conscience of the men of the 
north against slavery, as preeminently the work of 
one man, is a totally unwarranted assumption. 
There is a way of writing history, lately attempted, 
which, if accepted without protest, would for the 
time seem to accomplish this thin.G^. The writers 
of the biography of the late W. L. Garrison rely 
quite extensively upon his Liberator for authority, 
and thus sustained there really was but one cham- 
pion of God and freedom in the north. Should 
the sons of the late J. G. Birney accept the chal- 
lenge, work as largely and as narrowly, drawing 
their authority from a similar source, they would 
for him make a case every whit as strong. Neither 
work would be accepted finally as history ; both 
would be great contributions to it, of value beyond 



B. F. WADE. 159 

estimation. This last work should be at once set 
about. It would have this unequaled advantage 
— slavery was overthrown by political means. Mr. 
Garrison refused their use, opposed with the might 
of his trenchant pen and resounding voice their 
employment, and the men who used them. 

Mr. Birney was among the first to see that the 
most effective single thing was the employment 
of political power, backed of course by all the 
moral forces. He was the first to employ it. 
He, too, was a candidate for the Presidency in 
1840. 

He was hewn from the mountains, rejected of 
politicians, to become — I am not to anticipate. 
He was placed in the field largely by the clear- 
seeing Myron Hawley, as mentioned, and received 
but seven thousand and fifty-nine votes, provoking 
jibes and sneers from the Whigs, derision and 
sarcasm from Garrison. They were allies against 
Birney.* 

The Liberty party — third party — was to be one 
of many evidences, itself an illustration that a 
party in the United States cannot be made. It 
was and will be mainly recruited from the Whigs, 
and treated by it accordingly, smiting it back in its 
hour of might. There will be individual war by it 
against leading Whigs, at one with it, save its in- 
dependent organization. 

* I am glad to be able to say that General Wm. Birney is now en- 
gaged on a biography of his late father which will be of great value 
and interest. 



i6o - B. F. WADE. 

Frank Wade, it was insisted, must leave his 
party and join it. Mr. Giddings was denounced, 
yet he was to abandon his organization while 
Wade still grasped its remains, fossilized in his 
hands. If the Whigs hated it, the Garrisonians 
did the more abundantly, and so the wars within 
a war would go on. Men in the struggling grasp 
of a common great enemy will still find time to 
clutch each other's throats over the things of 
means and leaderships. This many-cornered war 
was to gather strength and fierceness till every- 
thing was hidden and lost in the smoke and din of 
the battlefield, no longer a figure of speech. 

Much important matter occurring in congress 
must be passed without note. Mr. Slade of Ver- 
mont, early in the twenty-sixth congress, presented 
his memorials against slavery in the District of 
Columbia, which caused the southern representa- 
tives, under Mr. Wise, to withdraw in a body from 
the house — the first secession. Mr. Giddings en- 
tered this congress. It was the one during which, 
under the lead of Atherton, inspired by Calhoun, 
slavery secured the adoption of the famous twenty- 
first rule, which sent everything touching slavery 
to the tomb of the table without a word. Those 
were the days when the ponderous Lewis of Ala- 
bama left the house to inspect " coffles of slaves" 
from Maryland, halted in front of the east portico 
for that purpose, and the hall of representatives was 
the scene of constantly recurring disorder, caused 
by the brutal violence of southern members, under 



B. F. WADE. i6i 

provocations of Mr. Adams and Mr. Giddings. 
The '' Aniistad case," so productive of abolition 
sentiment, had arisen, and other things of the same 
tendency. The new Whig President called a spec- 
ial session of the twenty-seventh congress, was 
himself called, and left his party to go to pieces, 
under the unexpected exigencies flowing from his 
absence, and its utter inability to deal with the 
new questions, thence to be an abiding presence 
till slavary should disapear. The twenty-seventh 
congress saw the attempt in the house to censure 
Mr. Adams, the Creole case, the censure of Mr. 
Giddings for his platform of the rights of slaves on 
the high seas, beyond the reach of slave laws, his 
resignation and triumphant reelection, followed by 
his Paaficiis letters. The close of the congress was 
the publication of a strong address on the aspects 
of the slavery contest, from Mr. Adams, prepared 
by Gates, and bearing the names of twenty Whig 
representatives, including that of J. R. Giddings, 
S. J. Andrews, Slade and Gates. Its immediate 
purpose was to warn against the annexation of 
Texas ; its influence extended much farther. A 
hasty treaty for that purpose was patched up by 
Mr. Calhoun, who had succeeded Mr. Webster, 
Le Gaire and Upshur in the state department, 
and summarily killed by Mr. Benton in the senate. 
Meantime Mr. Clay, whose contemptuous treatment 
of President Tyler caused much of the trouble be- 
tween that worthy and the men who elevated him, 
brought forward his propositions of policy, made 



1 62 B. F. WADE. 

his retiring speech, resigned and awaited in serene 
security his call to the Presidency. He had al- 
ready received Mr. Mendenhall's Quaker petition 
for the emancipation of his slaves, and made that 
insolent reply which, with his letter against Texas 
annexation, made his call sure. Their united ef- 
fect on his election was another thing. He was 
placed in nomination May i, 1844, by acclamation, 
at Baltimore. 

The Democratic convention assembled in the 
same city on the twenty-seventh of May. Mr. 
Van Buren was largely the choice of the Demo- 
cratic party. Mr. Cass ivoidd be a candidate, and 
was. The Democrats were also more largely in 
favor of the annexation of Texas ; Mr. Van Buren 
had written a letter against it. The convention 
adopted a former rule, requiring a two-thirds vote 
to nominate. On the first ballot, 146 were cast 
for Mr. Van Buren. ^^^ for Cass and 37 scatteringly. 
On the eight, Mr. Van Buren 104, Cass 144 and 
J. K. Polk 44 ; Mr. Polk was unanimously nomi- 
ated on the ninth with a resolution demanding 
Texas and Oregon to 54 degrees and 40 minutes. 
The convention dispersed. 

No more conspicuous figure has ever appeared 
in American political history, none so grand and 
really imposing as Henry Clay. Lofty, magnani- 
mous, far-seeing, intensely American, creative, 
chivalrous, of unsulied fame, an eloquence of the 
rarest excellence and power ; none ever before or 
since, secured the love and devotion of so many 



B. F. WADE. 163 

men, and men of diverse opinions, habits and pur- 
suits. No American statesman has yet connected 
his name with so many and such important meas- 
ures, due only to causes arising in the scope of 
the ordinary poUtical necessities of a progressive 
people. He in his youth was an Emancipationist. 
He came too early to have his fine impulses lit and 
fanned to flame by the later arising spirit which 
inspired the great upheaval. 

The admirers of an exceptionally brilliant poli- 
tician of our day are fond of running parallels be- 
tween him and Henry Clay. They may be exhib- 
ited on the same canvas by contrasts ; one will 
live, the other's place is, perhaps, undetermined. 

The contest of 1844 was next the preceding, the 
most sharply contested of the national canvasses 
to that time, its consequences infinitely more im- 
portant than those of that. Incidentally, great but 
unintended help was given to the anti-slavery cause 
in the thorough discussion of the Texas issue. It 
would be curious to note how Whig blows against 
that helped to demolish the Whig party. 

No man in Ohio was more zealous and effective 
than Frank Wade in the advocacy of Mr. Clay's 
election. He was the first man in public life 
of his state, as will be remembered, to take 
ground against Texas annexation in the Ohio sen- 
ate. He gave quite his entire time and strength 
to this canvass. None were more sorely disap- 
pointed by the result. Never was there such 



1 64 B. F. WADE. 

widespread heart-break occasioned by the result of 
a Presidential election as that of 1844.* Of the 
popular vote, Polk received 1,337,243; Clay, 
1,299,068. 

Another power is now to be taken account of. 
At this same election James G. Birney received 
62,300. These defeated Mr. Clay and made our 
subsequent history possible. 

Nothing is more profitless than speculation of 
what might have been, if the actual were not. 
Seemingly, the election of Mr. Clay would have 
postponed the crisis of 1861 to the next century. 
It came none too soon — is over. Let us be com- 
forted. 

Great events crowded each other under the in- 
fluence of the Democratic success. The Texas ten 
million bill bought its way through congress. 
President Tyler approved it, and Texas was an- 
nexed. Among Mr. Polk's first acts was to dis- 
patch General Taylor across the old Spanish Texas 
into Mexico, stopping only at the Rio Grande, 
which the Mexicans crossed, and fought the first 
battles of that fateful war — with discussions in 
congress of the Wilmot proviso, ultimate annexa- 
tion, which brought in California, gold, and the 
exclusion of slavery from the new state. Preceding 
these was the adjustment of our Oregon boundary 
with England. P'iercely the Democrats clamored for 
the whole. Mr. Adams and Mr. Giddings frightened 

* The author, an ardent young Whig of twenty-seven, was more de- 
pressed at the result than by the death of his hero, General Harrison. 



B. F, WADE. 165 

them out of it with a threat of war with Great 
Britain, in which, as Mr. Adams claimed, a general 
at the head of an army could liberate all the slaves, 
as a military measure, while Giddings appalled them 
with pictures of slave insurrections in the presence 
of the British forces. No time was spared. Mr. 
Polk made haste to conclude a treaty, by which the 
Democracy shrunk to the forty-ninth parallel. 

At the Whig convention of 1848, General Tay- 
lor was nominated for the Presidency over Clay, 
Webster and Scott — a signal for the first large 
secession from the Whig party in various sections 
of the north. 

In Ohio a young Whig lawyer of the Giddings- 
Wade school called a convention over his own name> 
at Chardon, of those opposed to the Whig nom- 
ination. The result was such, that similar conven- 
tions followed in each of the Reserve counties, 
and the party in Ohio ceased to be potential. 

Mr. Cass was nominated by the Democratic 
convention of May 22, at Baltimore. The Wilmot 
proviso delegation of New York bolted. This 
gave the Van Burens an opportunity to avenge 
on Cass their wrongs of 1844, Under the name 
of " Barn Burners," derived from the Patroon 
war of their state, they united with the Free-soil 
party of that year, and placed the elder Van 
Buren in nomination for the presidency also. 
What a campaign was that! Mr. Seward and 
John Van Buren — Prince John — were both on the 
Reserve. Of the popular vote General Taylor 



1 66 B. F. WADE. 

received 1,360,163, Cass 1,220,544 and the Free- 
soil candidate 291,262.* 

Ohio was left without a dominant majority in 
the legislature, and her capital given over to mis- 
rule for a time. Mr. Giddings became a Free- 
soil leader. His course cost him a seat in the 
senate. A coalition of Free-soilers and Demo- 
crats placed Salmon P. Chase in the senate, and 
launched him on a great national career. Oppor- 
tunity always comes to such men. Perhaps Mr. 
Giddings' place was really in the house, f 

Mr. Wade, as will be remembered, was elected 
judge in 1847, which withdrew him from partici- 
pation in the many-angled contest of 1848, though 
he was knowji to adhere persistently, obstinately, 
to the Whig party, to the grief of many admiring 
friends, who but half knew him. It may be a 
problem whether those who withdrew from it 
could not as well have served the paramount 
cause by remaining in it. Certainly in the case 
of Mr. Wade, it left him in a position where the 
men who refused to vote for Mr. Giddings for th^ 

* 1 he author voted for— he does not care to name him. 

+ He had richly earned the promotion, if such it is. He was the 
unanimous nominee of the Free-soil organization, consisting of eleven. 
The Whigs, with the persistent stupidity which preceded the death 
they merited, refused to aid his election. This enabled and justified 
Mr. Townsend to enter into an arrangement by which the Democrats 
aided in the election of Mr. Chase. The position of the author has 
not the slightest historical importance. He voted for Mr. Giddings 
till the Whigs demonstrated their inequality to their opportunity, 
when he notified his Free-soil associates that if Mr. Chase failed on 
the pending ballot, he should vote for him at the next. Mr. Chase 
was elected on that pending ballot. 



B. F. WADE. 167 

senate, g-ladly conferred their united suffrage on 
him. 

He doubtless chafed under the decorous re- 
straints of his judicial position, which held him 
from the political tribune — restraints which he 
regarded as suspended, by one great event, in the 
history I am so imperfectly outlining. The winter 
of 1849-50 was memorable in congress as that of 
Mr. Clay's omnibus bill — the snm of his great 
compromises, where as usual the concessions 
seemed to us all on one side. It was a session of 
great debates in the senate, between Mr. Clay 
and Colonel Benton, whose great difference was 
mainly whether the republic should be given up 
to one huge monster, with one maw and many 
mouths, or several equally voracious, small, 
with each its own maw. Mr. Benton prevailed. 
That, too, was the session of the fall of Mr. 
Webster — for fall it was. 

The passage of the fugitive slave act found 
Judge Wade holding court at Ravenna. All men 
heard it with equal detestation and horror. A 
public meeting was called at the court house. On 
being approached, he expressed his entire willing- 
ness to address it. Timid friends would dissuade 
him. He brushed them by and delivered a pow- 
erful phillipic against it. That this was not out of 
place nor out of character is apparent when it is 
remembered that, within less than a year, his 
judicial career and character received the thought- 
ful consideration and approval of the ablest and 



1 68 B. F. WADE. 

best men of the bar, already quoted. Now, after 
this long retrospect and these many pages, the 
time is at hand when the senator will take his 
place. We will certainly attend him to Wash- 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Capital in 1851. — Population and Character. — Congressional 
Life. — The Thirty-second Congress. — The Senate. — The House. — 
The New Senators. — Pen Sketches. — Places on Committees. — 
Compromises of 1850-51. — A Final Settlement. — Fillmore-Corwin. 
— Wade's Speech on the Collins Subsidy. — General Cass. — Election 
of 1852. — Conventions.— Candidates. — Clay and Webster. — Choat. 
— The Free-soil Party. — The Popular Vote. — Thirty-third Con- 
gress. — New Senators. — Pierce's Message. — Nebraska. — Kansas. — 
Douglas-Chase-Wade Speeches. — Bill Passes the Senate. — Passes 
the House. — The Vote. — The Globe. 

Washington had been the capital since 1800. 
At the time thus taken possession of by the gov- 
ernment, save the httle corporation of George- 
town, the Maryland side of the Potomac was an 
unpeopled region. It was soon occupied by folk 
who were drawn thither to become the tavern and 
boarding-house keepers, livery and hackmen, the 
servants and boot-blacks, market-men and small 
shopkeepers, of the office-holders and employes of 
the government, the waiters, servants and lackeys 
of senators and members of the house, and the 
visitors of the home and residence of what made 
the state the visible government of the great Re- 
public — their incomes derived wholly from the 
personal expenditures of congressmen and govern- 
169 



lyo 



B. F. WADE. 



ment employes. In any estimate of the city, this 
origin of its population is not wholly to be lost sight 
of even now. At the time it became the senatorial 
residence of Mr. Wade, the district had a popula- 
tion of forty thousand. Of this, fifteen thousand 
were colored, including about three thousand 
slaves, reckoning every human being supposed to 
have a tincture of servile blood. On Seventh 
street, at the margin of the malaria-breathing 
canal, was the slave-pen and persuasive whipping- 
post, in full sight of the capital. This found its 
counterpart in the city prison, on the northeast 
corner of Judiciary square. The Maryland slave 
code was in force, and a more unlovely and, un- 
wholesome town did not exist in the civilized world 
than the city which straggled up and down the left 
bank of the Potomac calling itself Washington. 
Thecapitol was the older structure with its ancient 
dome. The foundations of the new house-wing 
were laid in iS^o; the senate chamber was the pres- 
ent supreme court room. The then hall of the 
house is now given over to the effigies, in mar- 
ble or bronze, of the great men of the states, 
two and two, as the present generation may 
elect. Congressional and social life at the capital 
were not then what they now are. It was then 
much more to be a member of congress. It cost 
much less money and more brains. American 
colossal fortunes did not then exist. Journalism, 
railroading, telegraphy, were in their infancy. 
The capital had few attractions save to politicians, 



B. F. WADE. 171 

few visitors, and sojourners of the wealthy, who 
sought it as a social centre. A very {q\n senators, 
and rarely a member of the house, had their 
families with them at Washington. They formed 
"messes," lived in boarding-houses, in the kind 
of he way that men will, severed from the ties, 
influences, and it may be added, restraints of home 
and home life. A more dreary, unattractive state, 
for a cultured man of social instincts and habits, 
nowhere was endured, than that of the average 
congressman of the time of Mr. Wade's advent at 
Washington. He suffered less by it than did 
many — most of the men of his time. 

Members of congress then received eight dollars 
per day, counting all the days of the week, and a 
liberal mileage by any roundabout route. They 
provided also for perquisites, in the way of 
stationery and cutlery, and enjoyed the franking 
privilege — so long the target of Horace Greeley's 
assaults. 

Mr. Wade fixed himself in Mrs. Hyatt's boarding 
house, on the south side of Penns)4vania avenue, 
between Sixth and Seventh streets, west of the 
capitol, where I found him in 1861.''' 

The Thirty-second congress convened December 
I, 185 I, when Frank Wade entered upon, became 
a part of, that public life of which he had before, 
with the mass of men, only read and heard. Of 
the three greatest American senators, Calhoun died 

* East, west, north, south and their intermediates, in Washington 
directories, mean the given direction from the capitol. 



172 B. F. WADE. 

the year before, at sixty-eight ; Webster, of the 
same age, born in 1782, left the senate the year 
Calhoun died, to become secretary of state ; Clay, 
in many ways the greatest of the three, born in 
1777, was still in the senate. Can any one explain 
the law by which great men come in groups ? 

Wade's old foe of the forum in the collision 
trial was now President of the United States, step- 
ping to the place by the death of Zachary Taylor. 
He favored the compromise measures, opposed 
Taylor's administration, and placed Webster at 
the head of his cabinet, with Corwin secretary of 
treasury — of all men not a financier, and to that 
time a pronounced anti-slavery Whig, as Fillmore 
had been. In 1848 he was a possible President. 
Upon the passage of the fugitive slave act the 
President referred it perfunctorily, one must think, 
to his attorney-general, John Jordon Crittenden 
(a year younger than Webster), a born slave- 
holder, who found it to be entirely constitutional, 
and he signed it — a measure decisive of his political 
fate as of that of his financial minister and many 
others. 

At the openingof the senate Mr. Chase presented 
the credentials of Mr. Wade, and he was sworn 
in. He was then fifty-one years old, as will be 
remembered. Mr. Chase was forty-three at the 
time. 

The old senate chamber is a semi-circle. The 
straight side its eastern wall, at the centre of which 
was the vice-presidential chair, then filled by 



B. F. WADE. 173 

William R. King. The senators' seats were 
arranged in four arcs of the circle. The Whig 
side was the left of the President, the south of the 
chamber. Mr. Wade took one of the innermost, 
the second from the left. Mr. Seward, as will be 
remembered, entered the senate the congress be- 
fore. He was a year younger than Mr. Wade. 
He introduced his colleague, Hamilton Fish, born 
the same year with Chase, 1808. Charles Sumner 
entered the senate the same day. He, as will be 
remembered, was elected by a coalition of the 
Free-soilers and Democrats, after a long and 
exciting contest. He was then forty years old, 
and was introduced by General Cass, and took his 
seat on the Democratic side. No American of his 
time had been so favorably received in England as 
he was, unless we except N. P. Willis. He was 
always English in his air, and his presence pro- 
duced a solitude. Cass was then sixty-nine. Mr. 
Wade now saw the senators together, had seen 
many of them before. In glancing around the 
now spacious chamber, Clay, old, worn, and feeble, 
like a dying lion still kingly, sat in the outer circle, 
almost behind him, with Seward at his left. 
Following that circle round to the seat next the 
broad corridor, leading from the front entrance, 
his eye fell on the compact, squat, jug-like form 
of Stephen A. Douglas, with his large head and 
short legs.* 

* " No, sir ; no, sir ! He can never be President," declared posi- 
tive Colonel Benton ; " his— (not the skirts of his coat, as has been 



174 , B. F. WADE. 

The Virginia Mason, captured by Commodore 
Wilkes, with Slidell, a few years later, sat con- 
spicuous on the Democratic side — outer circle. 
There was also his chief, Jefferson Davis, with 
Henry S. Foote for colleague. Next Mason sat 
Chase, beyond Chase, Hannibal Hamlin. John 
Bell of Tennessee was there. James A. Pearceof 
Maryland sat in that senate a Whig. There, too, 
was Rhett and "Duke" Gwin, now from Cali- 
fornia, with Ohio's John B. Weller, whom Ford 
beat for governor, for colleague. John P. Hale 
had a seat on that side also. Sam Houston, 
gigantic, rosy and handsome, was there, as were 
Hunter and honest John Davis, Sumner's col- 
league. Of course there was a Bayard from Dela- 
ware. Pierre Soule was there, as was Jesse D. 
Bright ; so was Mangum, with Berrien from 
Georgia. It was an exceptionally able body, 
even for the American senate, and an abler man 
than Frank Wade would be slow to gain recogni- 
tion and make position for himself in it — which no 
man did in one congress if we except Seward, 
Chase and Sumner. A full senate numbered sixty- 
two. Dividing on old party issues, now disap- 
pearing, there was a decided Democratic majority. 

There were but five senators certain under all 
conditions to oppose slavery. John P. Hale, the 
hero of the New Hampshire revolution of '45-6, 
and elected to the senate in 1847, at the age of 

reported) — is too near the ground, sir!" Benton had been defeated 
for the senate by Henry S. Geyer. 



B. F, WADE, 175 

forty-one; Seward, Chase, Sumner and Wade. 
Of these, Seward and Wade were pronounced 
Whigs. Hale had been a Democrat, as was 
Chase, though he supported Harrison in 1 840. 
Sumner, by education and instinct, was a Whig. 
It must have cost the Democrats an awful strain 
to vote for him, as it certainly did their brethren 
of Ohio to vote for Chase, f 

It was supposed that congress now convened in 
a period of universal calm, under serene skies, on 
ground never again to be agitated. The incipient 
struggle of the forces was hushed to supposed 
perpetual silence. Slavery triumphant, the en- 
ergies of freedom and justice were tied down with 
the spinnings of the grim congressional spiders 
beyond recovery. 

If the senate was exceptionally able, passing 
fifteen or twenty names, the house was a common- 
place crowd. There were Stevens and Toombs 
from Georgia, Orr of South Carolina, Humphrey 
Marshall and Breckenridge of Kentucky, Giddings, 
Cartter and Townsend from Ohio, Clingman from 
North Carolina, Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, 
Thaddeus Stevens from Pennsylvania, Preston 
King from New York, Cleveland from Connecticut, 
Hibbard from New Hampshire, Robert Rantoul 
and Horace Mann from Massachusetts. The 

f " Here, Lord, I give myself away, 
'Tis all that I can do," 
was the pious exclamatory quotation of devoted Luther Montfort, 
Democratic representative of Darke county, when he cast his ballot for 
Chase. Darke would not stand it. 



176 B. F. WADE. 

caucuses began by quarreling over the compromise 
measures, but the members elected Lynn Boyd 
speaker on the first ballot. Thaddeus Stevens 
received sixteen votes, the radical anti-slavery 
strength of that body. 

The two houses exchanged messages and con- 
gress advised the President of its readiness to 
receive executive communications, and he re- 
sponded with his second annual message. 

Mr. Seward had supplanted Mr. Fillmore in the 
leadership of the New York Whigs. A virtuous, 
upright man, the handsomest of the Presidents, 
Fillmore was not without ambition ; was desirous 
of succeeding himself He was aware that a 
northern man must do more for the south than 
she would exact from one of her own sons, to 
secure her favor. It is probable, had General 
Taylor lived, the compromise measures would have 
been defeated. Mr. Fillmore began b}^ opposing 
his administration. He favored and approved these 
measures, and his first annual message declared 
them a final settlement. Still the north was 
restive; the new slave rendition act was resisted, 
and this gave him a coveted opportunity to remind 
the south of its obligations to him. The message 
dealt — with calm, level ability, in the hum-drum 
style of state papers — with the topics of the time, 
and, recurring to the violations of the fugitive act, 
the President requoted the constitution, and went 
over the weary corpse-strewn way of the vain 
argument of constitutional obligation and duty, in 



B. F. WADE. 177 

the track of which his own remains were soon to 
rest and be reviled. He again declared these 
measures a '* final settlement." 

On the conclusion of his papers' reading, Mr. 
Foote of Mississippi introduced a resolution 
enumerating these measures, declaring that they 
were the final adjustment of the several matters 
and things involved in or lying under them 
severally. There never was such a restless, 
unsettled, unsettling settlement. 

In the assignment to committees — a work of 
the senators — it is curious now to note the dispo- 
sition made of the anti-slavery men by the Demo- 
cratic majority. Mr. Seward was last on that 
of commerce, Mr. Chase second on revolutionary 
•claims, Mr. Hale at the end of private land claims, 
Mr. Sumner was the tail-piece of Revolutionary 
claims, as of roads and canals ; Mr. Wade was 
also appended to two — agriculture and claims. 
One recognizes the fitness of placing both Chase 
and Sumner on revolutions. One does not now 
care, save historically, what posts were assigned 
to the slavery leaders. Mason had the foreign 
relations, Douglas the second on this committee, 
and was chairman on territories — a sadly over- 
estimated man by his fellows. Intrepid, audac- 
ious, unscrupulous, he will be remembered as the 
breaker of the Missouri wall against slavery, when 
through the breach thus made rushed the border 
ruffians and all that followed. Soule had agricul- 
ture. Shields the army and District of Columbia 



178 B. F. WADE. 

— paddy that he was ; Gwin the navy, Atchinson 
the Indians, Butler of South Carohna the judiciary. 
Bright the roads and canals, Houston looked after 
the militia, and the others had second places. 
The rule is, the majority take the first and larger 
share of the places. Mr. Chase was a pronounced 
Democrat, as was Mr. Hale. The violence against 
decent usage in their cases marks the estimate 
of them as anti-slavery men. The judiciary is 
a leading committee of the senate, next in 
importance to the foreign relations. The senate 
was then strong in able lawyers ; the Whig, Berrien 
of Georgia, was the only good lawyer on it — 
whatever may be said of Butler the hero of 
Sumner's famous phillipic later. 

Considering the treatment of his colleagues and 
friends, Mr. Wade had no cause of complaint. He 
was in his seat, had his place, would quietly and 
silently study his fellows, correct his impressions, 
let men find him out as they might, and bide his 
days of usefulness — not of display, this self reticent 
descendant of the Bradstreets, Dudleys, Wiggles- 
worths, this son of Mary Upham, born in the 
bosom of the Feeding Hills of the Puritans. 

He and Seward had met before. Seward was 
fairly the coming man. Then slim, with marked 
head and face, suave, a philosopher rather than a 
man of action, he had a large personal following. 
The two senators at once became fast friends ; each 
did full justice to the fine, strong qualities of the 
other. 



B. F. WADE. 179 

The coalition by which Chase entered the senate 
lost him the confidence of Wade, as of all the older 
Whigs of Ohio. It lost him the one chance he 
might have had for the Presidency. For Wade 
there was a suspicion of arrogance, a flavor of 
sham, in the grand assumption of the splendid 
Sumner. He, too, came in by a Democratic coa- 
lition. Neither he or Chase ever had a personal 
following. Each was surrounded by worshiping 
young men and old sycophants, to whom conde- 
scension was grateful. Neither had many intimates 
of their own age and rank. Chase had fine social 
qualities ; could inspire warm attachments. Sum- 
ner seemed to care for neither. Most men at 
each interview with him had to tell him who and 
what they were. Some grew weary of that. 
Each had great personal advantages, and were the 
most striking of the still youthful figures of the 
senate chamber. 

Wade already knew Hale, who had all the qual- 
ities of good-fellowship — a handsome personable 
figure, rosy cheeked, with fancy and dash then at 
his best, he lacked the patient, persistent industry 
to realize the possibilities, the promise and proph- 
ecy, which attended his footsteps. He and our 
senator became well attached friends, remained 
such after the decline of Hale's popularity and 
efforts to sustain himself, and Wade had become 
one of the most prominent senators. 

Congress is about the last body which should 
ever deal with private claims. It is in no sense. 



i8o B. F. WADE, 

by function or temper, judicial; is without the 
means of verifying facts. Under the care, skill 
and industry of Elisha Whittlesey, chairman of the 
house claims committee, dealing with them was 
reduced to something like system, and his methods 
were respected in the senate. Succeeding to his 
seat, Mr. Giddings succeeded him at the head of 
the committee, and carried forward the business 
on his lines until formally deposed by his 
pro-slavery enemies. Mr. Wade, the partner of 
the one and pupil of the other, with his legal and- 
judicial ability, though last of his committee, in 
labor, skill and usefulness, became in a single 
session quite the first. It was a post where a man 
can do more work, render more real service, and 
gain less reputation, perhaps, than in any other 
senatorial position. 

There was one case coming from the house not 
referred to him, characteristic of the times and the 
dominant party, growing out of the old Seminole 
war. It seems that certain Creek warriors, serving 
in the Georgia contingent, captured some runaway 
slaves — maroons — and claimed them as spoil. 
To save them for their owners, really. General 
James C. Watson, a Georgia general, advanced 
fourteen thousand dollars and more to buy them 
of the Creeks, and it was to pay his heirs this 
advance and interest on it that this bill, in spite 
of Gidding's war in the house upon it, was pend- 
ing in the senate. Chase thoroughly understood 
it, and when Dawson of Georgia called it up, he 



B. K WADE. i8i 

declared his purpose of debating it. It was laid 
over and should have come up on Friday — private 
bill day. In his absence it was called up. Wade 
made an earnest effort to have it take the usual 
course, seconded by Sumner, so that his colleague 
could be present. This was refused, and the bill 
passed without discussion. 

Wade's only set speech of the first session was 
in opposition to the Collins subsidy for carrying 
the United States mails between New York and 
Liverpool. He evidently thoroughly understood 
the subject, and dealt with it in his direct western 
way. General Cass, still sore from his defeat by 
General Taylor, had made a speech it its favor, 
was especially worried by Wade's reference to his 
"noise and confusion" speech at Cleveland, 
made in response to an injudicious remark of Judge 
Reuben Wood, and insisted on an explanation, to 
which Wade good-naturedly yielded. It availed 
him nothing. He and his party were taunted with 
fifteen years of utter neglect of the lakes and 
rivers, and interposed again. He finally promised 
to vote for a properly framed bill for these 
improvements, knowing full well, as Wade told 
him, that, under his party management, no bill 
for such a purpose would ever be seen or heard 
of. The speech was a compact, vigorous state- 
ment of the whole question, from a western sena- 
tor, sore under the chronic neglect of his section, 
and rapidly growing to strength and power to care 
for itself. It was not only impressive upon the 



i82 B, F. WADE. 

question, but made a good impression in the sen- 
ator's favor. Reticent, alway seen in his seat, not 
before heard save for a terse statement or sen- 
tentious explanation. 

The provision passed, authorizing twenty-six 
trips per year, at ^33,000 per trip, approved 
August 25, 1852,* That session ended six days 
later. It was comparatively an unimportant ses- 
sion. Its perfected labors fill four thousand and 
forty-seven pages of the thribble-columned Globe. 
It produced three large volumes of that tumid 
work. There were notable debates of the finished, 
completed, settled work of the last congress, in 
which leading men took part in both houses. In 
the senate, Cass, Chase, Foote, Hale, Mason, 
Rhett and others. Mr. Sumner occupies much 
space in the Globe of that year. The compromise 
measures early, the fugitive slave act later. Mr. 
Seward remained silent upon the great and greatly 
settled slavery issues. This was the year of Kos- 
suth's advent. Foote introduced a resolution the 
first day of the session to provide a fitting wel. 
come, on which all the group of five, save Wade, 
were heard. 

The great Clay died the twenty-ninth of June, 
and though the new issues had brought his just 
fame under eclipse for the day, the Republic will 
cherish his m.emory as one of its most valuable 
possessions. 

The first session of a congress is alway long. 

* Subsidies for foreign mails were then Democratic. 



B. F. -WADE. 183 

The constitution limits the second. Usually as 
much real legislative work is accomplished by the 
second. The perfected laws in the second were 
larger in bulk than the first, the most of which, 
however, were largely the work of the earlier 
session. It is to be remembered that while the 
senate is in a way a continuing body, congress is 
not, and that all unfinished business falls at the 
end of the final session, not to be resumed by the 
succeeding congress, unless introduced by new 
bills. Congress has never invented a method of 
bridging the intervening chasm and saving itself 
much real and perfunctory labor and the Republic 
much expense. 

The second session was a quiet period. It 
mourned the death of the great Webster and re- 
spectable Upham. Mr. Wade had a notable 
contest over a private claim, carrying it through 
against Mr. Broadhead, his chairman. Nobody 
debated the compromise measures at that session. 
The Whigs, meantime, had been beaten in the 
Presidential election. Their party was about to 
disappear. They were sober and subdued ; the 
victorious Democrats forbearing and silent. Mean- 
while the Galphin and Gardner claims had made 
their way, and Mr. Corwin was to be investigated, 
and with the addition of a rather swollen Globe and 
a supplement, that commonplace congress quietly 
subsided.^ 



* Many of the speaking men of both houses revise their speeches as 
they run through the Globe presses. This was the habit of our sena- 



1 84 B. F. WADE. 

Something is to be said of this Presidential elec- 
tion of 1852, of great historical significance, and in 
the canvass receiving after the adjournment, the 
entire time and best efforts of Mr. Wade, whose 
seat in the senate gave him added influence. The 
struggle between the great parties was for the 
support of the south. 

Reunited and confident the Democracy met in 
convention at Baltimore, June i, 1852. Cass, 
though seventy, was a candidate, as was Buchanan. 
Douglas, not yet forty, was also brought forward, 
as was Marcy. A fear of the old dissensions of 
his state was fatal to the best man then prominent 
in the party. " Manifest destiny," supposed to be 
a doctrine of Douglas, was injurious to him. 
Buchanan never had personal popularity. Cass 
was old, had been unfortunate. Neither could 
command two-thirds of the votes under the inflex- 
ible rule. This condition of things had been an- 
ticipated and provided for, and the way carefully 
prepared for a purely spontaneous upheaval for 
the youthful Pierce. Caleb Cushing and B. F. 
Butler had the credit of manipulating this move- 
ment, and it succeeded. William R. King was 
nominated for vice-president. 

The platform was eminently Democratic, none 
ever more so. It fittingly denounced the Aboli- 
tionists and all anti-slavery men, lauded the corn- 
tors. Such as are retained for more leisurely revision are collected and 
presented in the supplement. Thi:; volume of the Globe for the Thirty- 
second congress contains none of the labors of our group. 



B. F. WADE. 185 

promise measures and gave the fugitive slave act 
"honorable mention " by name. "The Demo- 
cratic party will resist all attempts at renewing in 
congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery 
question under whatever shape or color the at- 
tempt may be made," was its unanimous and em- 
phatic declaration. 

Mr. Pierce was forty-six years old, handsome, 
accomplished, plausible, and not without talent in 
a small way ; had served in the house and in the 
senate, was one of Polk's political generals. That 
was before the invention of favorite sons. He was 
one in fact.^ 

The action of the convention was everywhere, 
north and south, hailed with Democratic acclaim. 
The sage of Lindenwold — what a state New York 
is for Democratic sages! Mr. Van Buren was 
taken to the Tamman\' wigwam, threw himself 
Vvith abandon into the embraces of his whilom 
foes — forgiven and forgiving. His representatives 
who secured his nomination at Buffalo four years 
before, were some of them in the Baltimore con- 
vention, and he and they placed unshod rejoicing 
feet on its platform. 

Two weeks after the nomination of General 

* His friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, wrote a campaign life of him, 
and had the Liverpool consulate — certainly the best thing flowing from 
his elevation. Mr. Howells performed the like service for his friend, 
in 1866, and received the Venetian consulship. I always thought his 
much the better work, but it is to be remembered that he had more and 
better material to go on. His hero certainly never fainted in presence 
of the enemy. Both works were fortunate incidentally for American 
letters — safe precedents to follow. 



186 B, F. WADE. 

Pierce, the Whigs met at the same city to select 
their candidates and declare their sentiments and 
policy. In view of the catastrophe awaiting them, 
to look back at now, it seems as if their assembly 
must have been the saddest body of politicians 
•ever convened. Not without strength, courage 
and high hope did they meet. Apparently the 
party was strong and firm at the south. This 
canvass was to demonstrate that there was a 
stronger common bond uniting that south than 
one binding its people to any party. 

The convention sat continuously five days. Mr. 
Webster, Mr. Fillmore and General Scott were 
the candidates. Of course the President and his 
secretary of state represented exactly the same 
idea and issue. Why some arrangement was not 
had before the convention sat, is a mystery. From 
the tenacity of the parties in the convention, this 
was perhaps impossible. 

General Scott was the candidate of the anti- 
slavery Whigs, unpromising as he was. On the 
first ballot Mr. Webster received twenty-nine 
votes — the largest number he ever received. Mr. 
Fillmore, one hundred and thirty-one; and Gen- 
eral Scott one hundred and thirty-three ; showing 
an apparent ease for the administration to control 
the nomination. Certainly no administration ever 
occupied such a position before a convention of its 
own party. 

Mr. Clay was then dying in Washington; as 
will be remembered, did die a few days later. A 



B. F. WADE. 187 

letter from him was circulated, urging the nomina- 
tion of Mr. Fillmore. The friends of Mr. Web- 
ster were a good deal embittered by this action on 
his part, and when Mr. W.'s warm, earnest, steady 
support of Mr. Clay, in 1844, is remembered, this 
seems little in accordance with his known charac- 
ter. He had never forgiven Mr. Webster for 
adhering to John Tyler, and in a way shielding 
him from his fierce assaults nine and ten years 
before. Unquestionably, his controlling motive 
was a vindication of his own course in the last 
congress. To have nominated any one but the 
President, would not have been a vindication, so 
dear to him in extremis. 

The anti-slavery Whigs, under Seward's lead, 
could not be won to support the President, who 
had no votes from his own great state. Her del- 
egation was solid against him. That alone would 
be fatal. The marvel-working Choate was at the 
head of the Massachusetts delegation, and ex- 
hausted his power of eloquence and persuasion to 
secure a complimentary vote, one pro fonna, from 
the southern states, for the great expounder who 
laid down his life — all his lives for it. The charm 
was powerless. Not a man responded. A crime 
never atoned. 

So the struggle went on until the fifty-third 
ballot, when Scott was nominated with William 
A. Graham of North Carolina for second. 

The platform in substance was a counterpart of 
the Democratic. It could not be less. It specifi- 



1 88 B. F. WADE. 

cally declared the compromise measures were a 
settlement, in substance and principle, of the great 
controversy, including the fugitive slave act by 
name, and as such accepted by the Whig party. 
That its acquiescence was essential to its exist- 
ence as a national party, and the integrity of the 
Union. 

There was a wide and general admiration of 
General Scott; his nomination produced some 
enthusiasm, and for the few first weeks the Whigs 
were not without much hope and confidence. 
The platform everywhere north was received with 
derision and execration. Horace Greeley delib- 
erately spat upon it. Indeed, spitting on their 
platform by the Whigs became an amusing but 
not a healthy exercise for them, though many of 
them did little else. I am certain Frank Wade 
did a fair share of that, and he was a worker. It 
was fatal to them at the south ; an attempt to run 
the candidate north and the platform south, was 
never so purposely attempted before. It did not 
work. Neither run well anywhere. General Scott 
carried Kentucky and Tennessee south, and Mass- 
achusetts and Vermont north. Pierce carried all 
the rest, with two hundred and fifty-four electoral 
votes, to forty-two for his opponent. So far from 
giving the Whig candidate any, the least, support, 
the Whig administration, in some instances, openly 
opposed in others more numerous, secretly be- 
trayed him. 

Mr. Clay died without the coveted approval of 



B. F. WADE. 189 

his party, followed by his greatest rival in October. 
Mr. Webster was profoundly mortified at the 
result of the convention, and it was very generally 
supposed that the melancholy which darkened his 
closing days was due to this as a cause and helped 
to lessen their number.* 

There remains an important part of the Presi- 
dential election to be mentioned. The Freesoil 
party of 1848 and the Liberty party of 1840, now 
merged, had tried to take the name of the Free 
or Independent Democracy. They put in nomi- 
nation John P. Hale for President and George W. 
Julian for vice-president. They made a vigorous, 
enthusiastic campaign, and gave 156,000 votes for 
them. Of these Ohio cast 31,682 ; Massachusetts, 
28,023; New York, 25,329; Illinois, 9,966 ; Wis- 
consin, 8,814; Vermont, 8,621; Pennsylvania, 
8,525; Michigan, 7,237; Indiana, 6,929; Con- 
necticut, 3, 160 ; Iowa, 1,604; Rhode Island, 644 ; 
New Jersey, 350; Kentucky, 265 ; California, lOO; 
Delaware, 62, and Maryland, 54. These figures 
were significant, not more in their sum total than 
in their wide diffusion, sufficient in themselves to 
secure the defeat of Scott in Ohio, New York, 
Illinois, Wisconsin, Maine, Iowa and Connecticut, 
although including many votes of Democrats. 

Seemingly never was Democratic power so 
firmly established, and seemingly on such secure 

* Whoever cares to see an elaborate, brilliant parallel and contrast 
of these great men, will do well to read Mr. Blaine's striking passages 
'Twenty Years, etc.,' Vol. I, beginning at page io6. 



I90 B. F. WADE. 

foundations. Pierce's total was 1,601,478 ; Scott's 
1,386,278; majority over Scott was 214,896; over 
Scott and Hale 58,747. An examination of his 
majorities in the southern states compared with 
them in the great northern, in the presence of 
Hale's vote, will show how deceptive that was, 
and the awful significance of the vote for Hale, as 
also the effect of a united south in solidifying a 
confronting north. Mr. Pierce placed Mr. Marcy 
at the head of his cabinet ; Mr. Guthrie had the 
treasury, Robert McClelland the interior, and 
Gushing, who had been a Whig — a John Tyler 
man and now a Democrat^ — was attorney general. 
One may fancy the meeting of Seward and Wade 
at the capitol for the closing session of the current 
congress. Seward had lost New York only by 
1,872 votes, while Hale had received 25,329, 
mostly Whig. Wade had seen Ohio go for Pierce, 
on whom he had been bitterly sarcastic, by 16,695, 
and cast her 31,682 for Hale. They had much in 
common, and there was great suggestiveness in 
these figures for them. Mr. Seward, politician 
and a statesman, was also a philosopher, an 
inveterate smoker, and found solace in an extra 
cigar. Wade was a moderate smoker, and clothed 
himslf in pungent and sarcastic sayings, as with a 
garment, for the benefit of the successful Democ- 
racy. Sumner could have found small comfort in 
Massachusetts' eight thousand for Scott over Pierce, 
though much hope in her twenty-eight thousand 

* He became a Republican ultimately, and died a Democrat. 



B. F. WADE. 191 

for Hale. Chase had made a vain effort to evan- 
gelize the Democracy, and though his state cast 
her electoral vote for his nominal candidate, upon 
the promulgation of the Democratic platform he 
wrote a strong letter to his friend and coadjutor at 
the Buffalo convention — the B. F. Butler of New 
York — repudiating the convention and its doings, 
and declared his purpose of adhering to the prin- 
ciples there set forth. This severed his nominal 
connection with the Democracy. Of our five, Mr. 
Hale certainly had most cause for self-congratu- 
lation, f 

Three important accessions were made to the 
senate meantime, John M. Clayton of Delaware, 
ranking with Cass. Silas Wright and Marcy ; 
Robert Toombs of Georgia, swaggering, assuming 
and able — both Whigs — and Judah Peter Benjamin 
of Louisiana, able, artful, treacherous ; later, 
Mr. Davis' secretary of state, still later a 
subject of Queen Victoria, and a leader of 
the English bar. J Later came Edward Everett 

fMr. Hale and Mr. Giddings' met some of the younger of us at 
Cleveland immediately after our state election of that year, at which we 
elected Edward Wade— the " Ned " of my opening papers— our repre- 
sentative in the thirty-third congress. Mr. Giddings had also been 
re-elected, and a great dinner in the open air was tendered him by 
that corner of Ohio, at Painesville, immediately after the election. I 
drove Mr. Hale, Mr. Giddings and Mr. Edward Wade, in the morning 
of the day, from Cleveland over the ridge road to Paineville. I had 
a splendid pair, a light carriage, the road hard and smooth, the 
country beautiful, the morning one out of Paradise. I was still young 
and knew horses. It was a drive, a ride, a day never to be forgotten. 

%h\. the English bar he not only became famous and wealthy, but he 
contributed a learned and valuable book to the profession, a standard 



192 B. F. WADE. 

and William Pitt Fessenden. A/[r. F. came to re- 
main. Everett's time would be limited. Thomas 
Hart Benton reappeared in this congress as a 
representative in the house. 

Prince Charming sent his first annual message 
to the thirty-third congress on its second day. 
Full of gay promise, he declared that no promi- 
nence should be given to any subject set at rest by 
the compromise acts. The past should only be 
recurred to for admonition and wisdom. "That 
this repose is to suffer no shock during my official 
term, if I have power to avert it, those who placed 
me here may be assured." 

This was December 6. January 4, Mr. Douglas 
introduced the Nebraska bill " and all our woes." 
Mr. Pierce's supporters had large majorities in 
both houses ! What did he mean ? 

The bill did not in terms repeal the Missouri 
compromise of 1820, that Mr. Douglas said, in his 
accompanying report, would disturb the late set- 
tlement — nice casuist! He did, however, report 
a section declaratory of the meaning of his bill. 
First, all questions of slavery in the territories and 
states to be settled by the inhabitants ; second, all 
questions involving slavery to be adjudged by the 
local courts, with right of appeal to the supreme 
court of the United States ; third, the fugitive 

work on sales ; a Jew of the Jews, as his name, qualities and push 
indicated ; he was a native of San Domingo and then forty-one years 
old. 



B. F. WADE. 193 

slave act should be extended to the territories. 
On the sixteenth of January, Dixon, Whig sena- 
tor of Kentucky, gave notice that he would n:iove 
an amendment repealing the Missouri compromise 
directly. Of course, Mr. Pierce was not respon- 
sible for him. 

Mr. Douglas was not inventive, but quick to 
avail himself of a suggestion. Some one advanced 
the idea that the compromise of 1850 suspended 
that of 1820. Mr. Douglas seized upon this, 
brought in a new amendment and report, based 
on this " new and useful " discovery. In his 
amendment occurs the famous declaration — "this 
does not legislate slavery into the territory or out 
of it, "etc. — which Colonel Benton described as "a 
section with a stump speech in its belly." The 
amendment divided the territory into Nebraska 
and Kansas. 

The American world took alarm. The Free- 
soilers were the first to take effective action. 
They promptly issued one of the ablest addresses 
— terse, compact, vigorous — ever issued by repre- 
sentatives to a constituency. It contains internal 
evidence of being largely the work of Mr. Chase, 
written with the aid of a paper prepared by Mr. 
Giddings, whose hand is very apparent in it. It 
was signed by Giddings, Chase, Sumner, Edward 
Wade and Gerret Smith, then in the house, and 
DeWitt of Massachusetts. It was printed in every 
leading paper in the north, and fixed public opin- 



194 B. F. WADE. 

ion unalterably against the bill. This publication 
appeared January 23 and 24.^ 

Mr. Pierce's organ, tlie Union, replied that the 
Democracy were resolved, and the President would 
provide for all the senators and representatives 
who perished in this cause. 

On the thirtieth of January, the day named to 
take up the bill, Mr. Douglas, in stormy wrath, 
fell abusively upon Mr. Chase as responsible for 
the address. With flashing face the Ohio senator 
confronted and threw his imputation of misconduct 
back. Douglas retorted that he had made false 
statements. The president called him to order. 
Chase said he should be answered. Later, Wade 
interrupted him and he answered civilly. His 
speech was an arraignment of the address and its 
authors. 

Mr. Chase arose fully wrought up, and his reply 
was most effective and happy. It appeared that 
originally the address was intended for Ohio only, 
and in its then form was signed by Senator Wade. 
Before issued, its originators changed the form and 
put it forth as from the Independent Democrats, 
when they omitted Mr. Wade's name. Mr. Wade 
arose and confirmed this, and emphatically indorsed 
every word of it. Mr. Sumner got a moment to 
acknowledge his signature, and declared his pur- 
pose at an early day to establish its entire verity. 
Mr. Seward moved the adjournment that day. 

* Mr. Hale had lost his seat and was in New York city practicing 
law. 



B. F. WADE. 



t95 



There was spirited and an^ry exchange of person- 
alities between the Ohio and IlHnois senators the 
next day, in which both were called to order. 
Whatever may have been their relations, this was 
an end of amity. Mr. Chase finally had great 
deliverance on the fourth of February — speaking 
two and a half hours. Ohio had given the largest 
direct vote against slavery. She had taken decided 
lead against the Nebraska bill. Her senior senator, 
as longer in the service, spoke on the third. On 
the sixth he was followed by her second champion, 
who declared that his colleague had left not even a 
dust of Douglas. 

It is to be remembered that the region then 
vaguely called Nebraska, was what was left of the 
Louisiana purchase, north of thirty-six degrees 
and thirty minutes, extending to the dividing line 
with England, and from the west line of the states 
to the comb of the Rocky mountains. 

" Here is a territory as large as an empire," 
said Mr. Wade — " as large as all the free states — 
pure as nature, and beautiful as the garden of 
God." The area equalled all the free states, with 
Virginia added. He began with modest self- 
depreciation, quite common in really diffident men, 
but of doubtful taste, and launched upon his theme. 
Evidently the whole subject lay closely within his 
mental grasp, and well arranged. He reminded 
the southern V/higs what it cost their northern 
friends, under the pressure of a growing public 
opinion, to maintain the integrity of their common 



196 B. F. WADE. 

party, to which was mainly due the prosperity of 
the country, and upon which its dependence to 
arrest misrule entirely rested. He then turned to 
the authors of the new measure, received every- 
where with indignant surprise, terror and horror. 
He demanded to know what visitation they had 
enjoyed ; what new light had reached them hidden 
from the world, as to the effect of the compromise 
of 1850 upon that of 1820? He went over with 
the later, showed its constant reference to the 
older as subsisting, and which its framers with 
studious care did their best to respect but which 
it was now found the}' had entirely abrogated, in 
spite of themselves. A hard, well-considered, fixed 
enactment of congress, solemnly passed, recognized 
by the nation and world, had been repealed by an 
abstract principle, recently discovered in other leg- 
islation. This he unsparingly ridiculed. Douglas 
explained and restated. Wade reiterated with 
scorn and contempt. 

It was said that in adjusting boundaries, New 
Mexico, a territory under protection of the acts 
of 1820, had been slightly cut into, and thereupon 
it is now proclaimed that the acts of 1820 were 
repealed as in the whole, notwithstanding the 
declaration of the New Mexican act that it did no 
such thing. Two owners of adjoining land re-run 
their lines. It is found that A has by this received 
an inconsiderable slip of B's domain, and thereupon 
A claims that both parties have recognized a 
principle which has abrogated, repealed, B's title 



B. F. WADE, 



197 



to the whole, and all A has to do is to take pos- 
session of the whole of it. He showed the effect 
upon the northern immigration of the presence of 
slavery in any region. No northern man, no 
foreign born, migrated to a slave state. A freeman 
would not make his home in the tainted region of 
slave quarters. No freeman would labor by the 
side of one degraded by being the mere chattel of 
another. The work of a slave was servile, because 
done by a slave. No free man would share in it. 

He was severe on Dixon, a pupil and the suc- 
cessor of the great Clay, whose last work he was 
impiously rending. While going on, Dixon and 
Butler of South Carolina were noisily talking, after 
the fashion of the south. Butler said Wade be_ 
lieved in the declaration of July fourth, which made 
the slave his equal, and why should not equals 
work side by side ? Wade caught it up with a 
flash. Dixon wished to know if he might ask him 
a question. He replied that he would cheerfully 
permit him and his associate (Butler) to ask him 
any question. Dixon wanted to know if he be- 
lieved the slave was the equal of a free man. 
Wade told him he believed he was the born equal 
of any man. ' ' By the law of God Almighty your 
slave is your equal, and so you will find out at the 
day of judgment, though probably not before, at 
your rate of progress," was his reply. 

This brought up slavery directly, and he rapidly 
sketched its effects on the people and country, 
which he illustrated by a graphic drawing of Vir- 



198 B. F. WADE. 

ginia, and it was proposed to thus Africanize the 
whole of the new great territory, after the Virginian 
pattern. He warned all parties north and south, 
that this would never be submitted to. He thought 
all compromises were mistakes ; wiser men thought 
differently, and made them. He acquiesced in 
them. With this instance o{ punic faith, there 
never would be another, there never should be 
another. This ruthless disregard of the compro- 
mise of 1820 left that of 1850 open to assault. 
Let the slaveholder beware. 

He began without formal opening and finished 
with no prepared phrases. He was strong, brave, 
impressive, and listened to with profound atten- 
tion. 

The speech, as a whole, was one of the best 
specimens of the strong, plain, direct, vigorous 
putting of things by the clear, hard-headed, honest 
intellect of the New England type, to be found 
in the records of congress, and did much to 
strengthen Mr. Wade in the senate and through 
the country. It admonished men to beware of a 
close struggle, where fibrous pluck, hard muscle 
and manhood would tell. 

The debate ran on, all the senators took voice 
in it, and on the morning of fourth of March, as 
the gray outer light mingled with the lights of 
the senate chamber, the vote was taken. Houston 
of Texas closed the debate with a strong speech 
against the bill. It passed — thirty-seven for to 
fourteen against it, and salvos of cannon, as on the 



B. F. WADE. 



199 



passage of the ten million Texas bill in the house, 
advertised the still sleeping city of the deed. 
Pearce of Maryland, even Clayton, who had voted 
for the Wilmot proviso, voted for it. John Bell 
stood with Houston against it. It was carried 
through the corridors across the rotunda to the 
house, where after nearly three months of stormy 
debates, the cannon again announced its passage. 
One hundred and fourteen voted for, and one 
hundred against it. Forty-four northern Demo- 
crats voted against it; no northern Whig voted 
for it. Seven southern Whigs voted against it, 
and three southern Democrats, Houston, Thomas 
Hart Benton"^ and John S. Millson of Virginia.! 

George E. Badger of North Carolina was an 
able man, a facile speaker, and, like many such 
men, took much oral exercise standing. In the 
Nebraska debate he made a pathetic, moving ap- 
peal to the opponents of the bill — personal really. 
He described himself as wishing to emigrate to the 
new territory, and carry his old colored manmfy 
with him — the woman who had nursed him in in- 
fancy and childhood, and whom he loved as a real 
mother — and he could not take her. The enemies 
of this benevolent measure forbade him. "We 
are willing you should take the old lady there — " 

* Colonel Benton passed from public life with that congress. 
He devoted his remaining years to his work— ' Thirty Years in 
the Senate.' and died at Washington, April 10, 1858, at seventy-six. 

t John S. Millson was re-elected to the thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth and 
thirty-sixth congresses, was steadily devoted to the Union, and died at 
Norfolk, his native city, February 26, 1873. 



200 B. F. WADE. 

interrupted Wade, ''we are afraid yoii II sell her 
when yo7t get her there.'' It settled the tender sen- 
ator, followed as it was by a universal roar of 
laughter. He made an ineffective effort to re- 
cover, and closed most abruptly. It was one of 
those stinging things that reduce an issue to a 
killing point, that precludes reply, escape or 
farther argument, j 

The session ran on till August 7, when the mis- 
rulers returned to meet their still amazed and in- 
dignant constituencies. 

I have now with much breadth traced my 
Feeding Hills boy to a prominent, soon to be a 
leading, position in the senate, where his history 
is part of the history of his time. I have also 
rapidly sketched the rise and progress of the great 
struggles against slavery, to the passage of the 
Kansas-Nebraska act, when its history becomes 
the history of the country. My theme must now 
be subjected to a more rapid treatment, a more 
condensed grouping of events and men. 

X The late Judge Jerry Black always spoke of this as the most effec- 
tive single blow ever dealt a man, a cause or an argument, in the history 
of congress. It was rare, he said, that the conditions for such a reply 
could exist, and rarer still that a man was present equal to making it 
To fully appreciate it requires a study of the whole field and an ap- 
prehension of all the factors involved. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Struggle on Kansas Soil. — Seven Years' War. — Thirty-fourth Con- 
gress. — Sumner Assaulted. — Slidell. — Douglas. — Toombs Approves 
— Is Denounced by Wade. — Dr. Welling's Account. — Wade and 
Toombs.— Wade and Clayton. — Burlingame and Brooks. — 1856 
Presidential Election.— Fremont. — Buchanan. — Dred Scott. — Thir- 
ty-fifth Congress. — Wade's Position. — Unconscious Preparation. — 
Thirty-sixth Congress. — Harper's Ferry. — Its Investigation. — 
Wade's Speeches. — ^John Sherman. — Southern Departure. — 1860. — 
The Popular Vote. — The Pryor- Potter Episode. 

Whatever may be the faiths of men, there are 
no indications of God in the affairs of modern na- 
tions or peoples. That their moral qualities, alike 
of men and methods, do direct)}' work in the line 
of the elevation or depression of a people, carry 
them forward or backward, is abundantly apparent, 
without the supposed agency of an overruling 
Providence. A religious faith influences only as 
it helps to form individual character. 

One of the most potent of human forces, the 
ruler w4io takes no account of it, is reckless or 
badly equipped. The profoundly religious man 
who acknowledges his daily obligation to a higher 
power, will see God in the affairs of men, whether 
his rulers take account of it or not. That faith in 



202 B. F. WADE. 

God, whether enHghtened or merely bHnd, had a 
large share in the causes of the great pending rev- 
olution is too obvious for proof, as its influence 
was too subtle to be segregated and discussed, even 
by a historian of philosophical tendency. In the 
great congressional struggle just closed — inter- 
rupted for a day really — the most striking phenom- 
enon was the memorial of the three thousand New 
England clergy, presented in the senate by Mr- 
Everett, That it made a profound and wide, prob- 
ably a lasting, impression is undoubtedly true. It 
was at once debated, denounced and deferred to. 
That it called forth countervailing clerical labors on 
the part of the southern pastorate, was well-known. 
That men usually manage to believe what they wish 
to be true, is a law of the human mind, and the 
peoples of both sides were imconsciously pre- 
pared to secure the aid of the God they sever- 
ally worshiped, when his help would be most 
needed. 

Just when the southern leaders formed the 
resolution of secession is not known. The idea 
was long a familiar one. They lost in the admis- 
sion of California as a free state, due mainh^ to Mr. 
Clay, the one thing gained by the north. That 
they hoped to regain the lost balance in the sen- 
ate by new states carved from Nebraska, won from 
the north, is unquestioned. Failing with a con- 
necting slave state, Kansas, California would secede 
with them. True, so long as the Democracy of 
that hemisphere were false to their position as 



B. F, WADE. 203 

northern freemen, they were safe. They were 
soon to see Douglas repudiated in Illinois and 
Cass in Michigan. True, the besotted Whigs would 
aid in ridding them of Chase in Ohio for the time. 
The struggle would be for the final possession of 
Kansas. They formed their ' ' Social Bands, " "Blue 
Lodges," and **Sons of the South," gathered up 
two or three hundred slaves, and crossed the Mis- 
souri in the spring of 1854. The north was astir 
with her " Emigrant aid societies, " and later her 
Springfield rifles. Of all the forms of human associ- 
ation, slaveholders are the feeblest of colonizers. 
In but one, the old way of the barbarians, was the 
dominion of Kansas possible to them. They must 
go in a body — a whole people — abandon their an- 
cient seats, take homes and hovels, leave their older 
domain a solitude, and thus secure the new\ Of 
all forms of property in the wide, empty plains, 
slaves would be the least certain, the most fuga- 
cious, beyond the utmost reach of fugitive slave 
laws. Mr. Pierce at once appointed A. H. Reeder, 
"a sound, national, constitutional. Conservative 
Democrat" — it took a good many adjectives then 
to name a Pierce Democrat — governor of Kansas. 
He was an upright man. He ordered an election. 
The wild riders and raiders of Missouri camped in 
Kansas, elected themselves, assembled in legisla- 
ture, and made it felony to deny the divine existence 
of slavery in Kansas. Reeder repudiated their 
legislature and vetoed all their bills. Pierce repu- 
diated and vetoed him, and sent Wilson Shannon 



204 B. F. WADE. 

— mellifluous name — to misrule in his stead. I am 
only to send the younger generation to read up 
the tradegy of Kansas — " Bleeding Kansas " as the 
Democrats derisively called it.* 

The transition period intervening between the 
fall of the Whig party and the rise of the Repub- 
lican was brief. The southern wing disappeared 
in the Democratic. The northern reappeared in 
the Republican, save a few fossilized and very 
respectable elderly men, known as Silver Grays of 
the John Bell and Edward Everett school. f That 
short time was one of conventions, arrangements, 
fusions and the reign of the Knownothings north, 
and which extended into the south, where it was 
under the lead of Henry Winter Davis, Humphrey 
Marshall, and the alway melancholy Horace May- 
nard. Its leaders north were many. Its stay so 
brief that it would be now useless and difficult to 
identify them. J They were largely the disappointed 
— the failures of the old parties, of course. A suc- 
cessful man never leaves his party or sighs for a new 
one. Nor does a successful party dissolve. A 
new question sometimes arises to which existing 

*They will find the latest an admirable account of it in Professor 
Leverett W. Spring's Kansas, of Houghton, Mifflin & Company's, 
' American Commonwealths,' recently published. 

t A Silver Gray Whig was aptly described as an eminently respecta- 
ble gentleman who took the National hitelligenccr (of Gales & 
Seaton), drank the best brandy and voted the Democratic ticket. 
X Called itself the American party, as one sung of the autumn leaf, 
" Its hold is frail, its stay is brief ; 
Restless and quick to pass away." 

— Wild's Southern Rose. 



B. F. WADE. 205 

parties are unequal. If of pressing moment, it 
makes for itself a new party ; when the remnants 
of the old unite against it. There never can 
be but two. This is a time of many factions, 
ere new formations appear with crystallization 
and growth. This was such a period of our 
national history, of which some thoughtful man 
will some time give us a most interesting study, 
which will involve the law of the rise, rule, and fall 
of political parties. Our history is rich with the 
material. 

Mr. Chase failing of reelection to the senate was 
nominated by a Fusion body and elected gov- 
ernor of Ohio by over fifteen thousand in 1855. 
A state convention of Michigan first took the old 
name Republican, assumed by the first national 
convention at Philadelphia. 

Meantime another Presidential election was 
approaching and Florizell, the President, must 
"face a frowning world," and as so many men 
of his brief day had, will find himself utterly 
devoured by the relentless power he so weakly 
and willingly served— men who learned nothing 
from what they saw and who, save as examples, 
did not survive their experiences. 

Some new names appeared in the Thirty-fourth 
congress. The most conspicuous in the senate 
were Lyman Trumbull from Illinois and Henry 
Willson of Massachusetts. J. J. Crittenden reap- 
peared, as did Mr. Hale. Ohio contributed not 
only a new senator, Pugh, but John Sherman, 



2o6 B. F. WADE. 

John A. Bingham, Samuel Galloway and Phile- 
mon Bliss to the house, which now had the three 
historic brothers Washburn from three states. 
Francis E. Spinner and Justin S. Morrill both 
appeared there for the first time, as did Colfax. 
Preston S. Brooks was there from South Carolina 
— was in the last house. Anson Burlingame was 
elected to this house, a Knownothing from Boston. 
That was the house which elected N. P. Banks* 
speaker after a protracted struggle. He was 
voted for exclusively by the north ; not a south- 
ern vote was cast for him. This was the first 
purely sectional election. As in the greater 
ensuing Presidential elections, the south refused 
to vote for either northern candidate, and made 
this refusal a pretext for denouncing the elections 
as sectional. 

The first thing now was "Bleeding Kansas." 
Hitherto the great ulcer had produced irritations, 
sores, eruptions in various other parts and forms. 
The presence of the slave was everywhere, and 
everywhere north it was offensive. It had now 
transplanted itself north. The feet of nearly three 
hundred slaves were burning the soil of Kansas, 
profaning her bosom and polluting her air. 
Henceforth she was the one cause, the field of 

* Banks entered the Thirty-third congress as a coahtion Democrat, 
to the present as a Knownothing. Had been speaker of the Massa- 
chusetts house of representatives, and president of her last constitu- 
tional convention. His defects of character defeated the prophecy of 
his young manhood. 



B. F. WADE. 207 

Strife. As fared slavery in Kansas, so fares slavery 
in the Republic. 

Who foremost sheds a foeman's life, 
That party conquers in the strife, 

though none foresaw it. 

Kansas of the many constitutions — four, at 
least, voted upon by her people, and others, in- 
cluding that of Lecompton, the pure product of 
slavery, which were finally submitted. She was the 
one thing to dissolve and reconstruct parties north, 
solidify the south, create and destroy men, strip the 
thin veneering of civilization from slaveholders, their 
servitors and lackeys in congress, convert and con- 
duct the two sections to armed hosts confronting 
each other in war actual. 

The bondmen's masters who sought by outrages 
to possess the youngest of the daughters, were 
strangled by her, sustained as she was by her 
northern sisters, and she took her proper place with 
them under the Wyandotte constitution January 
29, 1 86 1, seven years and a few days from the fatal 
introduction of the Nebraska bill by Stephen A. 
Douglas — seven years of chronic war thus initiated, 
to serve the vulgar ambition of an arrant dema- 
gogue, was the fitting, educating process leading 
up to the contest instantly to follow, which yet no 
one saw or suspected. 

A rapid survey, a glance at some of its inci- 
dents and salient points, with which Mr. Wade 
was personally connected, must be taken. 

Kansas thus at once became the subject of 



2o8 B. F. WADE. 

stormy debates in both houses, in the course of 
which Butler, of South CaroHna — who to his 
graces as a chivalrous Carolinian often added the 
inspiration of wine, its distilled spirits and of 
vulvar whiskey — made a speech quite under the 
usual elevating- influence. The southerners 
were so accustomed to vituperative abuse of the 
north and its delegates that they were unconscious 
of the force of the terms and manner they indulged 
in. Butler made a bad exhibition of himself, 
"scattering the loose expectoration of his speech/ 
as Sumner described it, over his person, desk and 
surroundings. Some time elapsed when Sumner, 
in the fullness of his own time and preparation, 
also discussed Kansas, under which head, as all 
on both sides had done, he discussed the whole 
subject of slavery, and for quite the first time dis- 
cussed slaveholders and their bearing in the 
senate ad JiomineDi. In the course of his speech 
he made contemptuous — not unjust — reference to 
Senator Butler and his performance. It was a 
graphic, condensed, painful speech.* 

At the recess the northern senators went out, 
leaving Sumner in his seat, with many of the 
southeners sitting about him — as if the whole 

* It is said that both Wade and Seward regretted it — as much of 
the speech. It was said also, and among RepubHcans, that Sumner 
was dissatisfied with his position before the country, and that this lent 
bitterness and acrimony to his speech of that twenty-second of May. 
It certainly was the most awful phillipic ever pronounced against 
slavery, and in the senator's thunderous voice and face aflame, little 
wonder that its effect was so maddening on the chronic exacerbated 
southerners and their allies. 



B. F. WADE. 209 

thing- was not over, when Preston S. Brooks of 
South Carolina, a kinsman of Butler, approached 
him, bent over his wTiting-desk and dealt him a 
heavy and stunning blow upon the head with a 
stout cane. Sumner was in his prime, and, though 
a student, w^as of large mould, healthy, and must 
have had great strength. With one mighty, instinc- 
tive effort he wrenched the solid oaken desk from its 
fastenings, nearly gained his feet, when a second 
furious blow felled him, where his cowardly assailant 
continued to beat him until he shattered his heavy 
bludgeon. Toombs and other southern senators 
were near. Douglas was not remote. Not a man 
went to his rescue or made sign or note of disap- 
proval. The senate chamber was a part of Kansas. 
E. B. Morgan of Aurora, New York — of the house — 
happened to enter the senate chamber and ran to 
the nearly insensible, bleeding man's aid, when 
Brooks prudently desisted. Sumner was borne 
out from the presence of his scowling, rejoicing 
foes. What they said to each other after he de- 
parted they never reported. Brooks made the 
only reply to him ever attempted in the senate. 

On the next day a committee of five was raised 
by ballot in the senate, consisting of Pearce of 
Maryland, Cass, Allen, Dodge and Geyer — all 
Democrats, all enemies. Mr. Cass had the smallest 
number of votes. Mr. Pearce reported without 
much delay. The assault was by a member of the 
house. The senate was without jurisdiction. 
There was a studious silence of the quality of the 



2IO B. F. WADE. 

act, though committed in the senate chamber dur- 
ing a session, and in the presence of many senators 
— a silence sufficiently expressive. A pure nega- 
tive pregnant, of the old lawyers, not misunder- 
stood. Nor did the committee intend that it 
should be. The house promptly sent Mr. Brooks 
to a committee. Mr. Sumner's deposition was 
taken at his lodgings. The publication of it 
called out explanation on the part of Messrs. 
Slidell, Douglas, Toombs and Butler. The se- 
verest condemnation of these men rests on the page 
of the Globe, which preserves their preconsidered 
statements. Mr. Slidell denied the statement that 
he was in the senate chamber at the instant. In a 
room adjoining a page rushed in and said Mr. 
Brooks was beating Mr. Sumner. He had no in- 
terest in the Massachusetts senator. Later the 
boy came back and said it was over, and he went 
out, saw Mr. Sumner borne by him — was 
the substance in very many words, contrived 
to express satisfaction without saying it. The 
most humiliating to an American was the 
column of words uttered by Douglas.* He 
said he was present, knew Brooks assaulted 
Sumner, a crowd gathered about them, and he 
could not see exactly what occurred, and soon zvent 

* It is impossible almost to find Douglas anywhere in the Globe 
where he appears to advantage. I know it is said he redeemed himself 
in 1861. What was left for him— repudiated north, maltreated south ? 
He doubtless felt the sting of humiliation and resentment. He was 
not needed. He received twelve electoral votes in i860 ; and died 
June 3, 1861, 



B. F. WADE. 211 

02it. The bold, bad Toombs, referred to by Slidell, 
corroborated him. Said he was present, saw the 
whole transaction, and approved it. Four lines 
give his speech. Space too much. Wade arose 
within arm's length of the savage, face livid, eyes 
flashing, hands clenched : 

Mr President — It is impossible for me to sit still and hear the princi- 
ples announced which I have now heard here. I know nothing, say 
nothing of the facts .involved. I am here in a lean minority. Not a 
fifth of the senate entertain my views. They are very unpopular here ; 
but when I hear it stated on the floor of the senate, that an assassin- 
like, coioardly attack has been made on an unarmed man, powerless to 
defend himself — was stricken with a strong hand, and almost mur- 
dered, and that such attacks are approved by senators, it becomes a 
question of interest to us all, and especially to the minority. It is true 
that a brave man may not be able to defend himself against such an 
attack. A brave man may be overpowered by numbers on this floor, 
but sir, overborne or not, live or die, I will vindicate the right and lib- 
erty of debate and the freedom of discussion upon this floor, so long as 
I live. If the principle now here announced prevail, let us come 
armed for the contest, and although jf^ ate four to one I AM here to 
MEET YOU. God knows a man can die in no better cause than in the 
vindication of the right of debate on this floor, and I only ask if the 
majority approve the announcement made, make it a part of our par- 
liamentary law, that we may understand it.* 

The world held its breath or drew it with 
tremors. Here were the sons of chivalry defied 

* Real lightning — God's article — had never before flashed in the sen- 
ate chamber and struck senators in their curule chairs. I am permit- 
ted here to give a private note of James C. Welling, LL. D., president 
of Columbian college, distinguished for scholarship and an accom- 
plished historical writer. I am glad to have a graphic account of the 
same by such an eye witness : 

Washington, May 6, 1886. 

My Dear Mr. Riddle :— Many thanks for a copy of the April 
number of the Magazine of Western History, containing the contribu- 
tion of your interesting biography of "Brave Ben Wade." I have 
read this installment with the greatest curiosity and interest, because 
the earlier part of it relates to the time when, as an enthusiastic boy 
shouting for "old Tippecanoe," I first began to watch the drift of 



212 B. F. WADE. 

with the terms assassin and cowardly, appHed by a 
man of the north. It was known that he was of 
heroic descent. Of course it devolved on Toombs 
to call him to account.* 

American politics. And that humorous speech of Tom Corwin, "the 
user-up of Crary," as the boys loved to call him in 1840! Why, I 
could then repeat whole paragraphs of it for the confusion of the Van 
Buren boys in the Ironton academy, where I was preparing for college. 

I shall never forget the defiant atitude of Mr. Wade in the senate of 
the United States a few days after the assault of Brooks on Senator 
Sumner. In the course of some "personal e.xplanations " made by 
Senator Slidell and others who had witnessed that outrage, Toombs of 
Georgia openly avowed that he had witnessed the assault, and that he 
approved it, too ! This was more than Wade could stand. I can see 
hmi now as he rose in his place, while Toombs was in the act of 
sitting down— his seat was very near to that of Toombs— and he began 
at once, with great vehemence of speech, to throw down the gage of 
personal combat, then and there to the southern senators," if the 
bludgeon was to be their weapon of argument in that stage of the con- 
troveisy. Alternately rising on the tips of his boots and sinking with 
all his weight on his heels, he thundered defiance alike with voice and 
eye as he gave emphasis to his periods with his sturdy fist pounding 
on the desk before him. Turning to Toombs he exclaimed : " If the 
principle now announced here is to prevail, let us come armed for the 
combat, and although you are four to one, I am here to meet you." 
The very air of the senate chamber was tremulous with passion. 

The fiery speaker casta withering look at Toombs as he resumed 
his seat, yet that thrasonical statesman did not adventure a word in 
reply. 

But I am trenching on an episode in the life of Senator Wade to 
which you can do better justice in all its aspects, and so I will forbear, 
simply pausing long enough to repeat the thanks, with which I am, my 
dear Mr. Riddle, 

Very truly yours, 

James C. Welling. 

As Dr. Welling advises me the Globe index contains no reference to 
Wade's speech, I found it by going through the Globe bodily. 

* James Watson Webb, founder of the once great Courier and En- 
quirer, who had an affair with Tom Marshall, a friend and admirer of 
Wade's, sought him, in company with J. A. Briggs of Ohio, another 
friend and admirer, the evening after the speeches, to be of service if 
required. They found him in his usual pleasant state, and Colonel 
Webb was amazed that no challenge had been received. He was 
certain Toombs had been in council with his friends, who would re- 
quire it of him. He wished to know his intentions if one came. Wade 
said his constituents to a man, perhaps, were opposed to the code. This 
was his affair. It was an exceptional time. In his judgment nothing 



B. F. WADE. 213 

Mr. Wade's personal matter with Senator Clay- 
ton occurred this season. It grew out of all fruitful 
Kansas, on which the Delawareian made a speech. 
Mr. Wade detected matter reflecting upon himself 
personally, which he was sure had not been 
spoken. On reference to the reporter, who had 
not destroyed his character notes, his suspicion 
was confirmed. He quietly called the senator's 
attention to it, and, failing to have the matter set 
right, took notice of it in a way to provoke much 
comment. It is said the diplomatic senator had 
the address to ascertain how an invitation to the 
field would be received by this descendant of the 
Puritans. The result did not incline him to send 



could be more salutary than the firm punishment of one of these south- 
ern braggarts. He was asked what would be his terms. He replied 
■'The rifle and thirty paces." He was cool, determined ; was a dead 
shot, and had his rifle in the city. His position was painful to the last 
degree. He betrayed no signs of it. The few intimates about him 
expected a meeting, and fatal to the southern. They said, "Pin a 
pajjer to Toombs' bosom the size of a quarter coin and Wade's bullet 
would certainly cut it." The next and the next day passed and no call. 
On the third both were in their seats. Toombs reached his hand over 
and placed it on Wade's shoulder saymg : " Wade, what is the use of 
two men making damned fools of themselves?" 

"None at all— but it is the misfortune of some men that they 
can't help it," was the good-humored reply ; and they were really good 
friends from that day on. Once later the fiery southern made an onset, 
this time coupling Wade with Seward. The philosophic New York 
senator went to the cloak-room at its commencement, lit a cigar, and 
stood in the door enjoying it. Wade took the floor and flashed back 
a iev/ caustic words. 

Toombs boasted in the senate of being "as good a rebel as ever 
sprang from revolutionary loins." He was at feud with Jefferson 
Davis, and made small figure after leaving the senate— one of the few 
blustering men of very great ability. His death occurred recently. 



214 



B. F. WADE. 



a missive. The matter lingered with a flavor in 
the atmosphere. Mr. Clayton found an opening to 
an interview, in which Wade good-naturedly said 
that " it ought to be regarded as barred by the 
statute of limitations." Mr. Clayton died the fol- 
lowing November. 

It may be stated that Brooks was saved expul- 
sion by the south — the majority against him being 
less than two-thirds.* 

It was a little after this time that the chronic in- 
solence of the slaveholders in both houses, and 
especially in the senate, led to the conviction and 
determination on the part of three conspicuous 
northern senators to resent these aggressions, and 
meet the foe on their own favorite field, a determi- 
nation which took the form of a league, " a com- 
pact." Years afterward the senators as a testimo- 
nial of the times, and their final method of dealing 
with some of the difficulties besetting them, exe- 
cuted the memorandum given in the note belgw, 
now first made public. Its language and structure 
would lead to the inference that it was to some 

^ He resigned, was unanimously re-elected— also a second time. 
The last to the thirty-fifth congress. He is said to have been pre- 
sented several hundred canes. He died very suddenly of diphtheria, at 
Washington, in January, 1857. He challenged Burhngame for words 
spoken on his case, but declined to follow him for the meeting— "across 
the enemy's country " to Canada, the place named. It will be remem- 
bered that Mr. Sumner's condition was jeered and sneered at by the 
southern senators until he returned to his seat. He undoubtedly re- 
ceived a severe spinal injury, which soon developed, and he went abroad 
for treatment, where he remained for years, Massachusetts keeping 
him nominally in the senate. He never fully recovered. His attitude 
was infirm, his step shaky. 



B. F. WADE. 215 

extent dictated to a secretary by Mr. Wade, the 
only paper deliberately made by him to perpetuate 
historical matter that has come to my notice : 

Memorandum. — During the two or three years preceding the 
outbreak of the slaveholders' rebellion, the people of the free states 
suffered a deep humiliation because of the abuse heaped upon their 
representatives in both houses of congress by their colleagues from the 
slave states. 

This gross personal abuse was borne by many because the public 
sentiment of their section would have fallen with crushing severity 
upon them if they had retorted in the only manner in which it 
could be effectively met and stopped, by the personal punishment 
of their insulters. 

Mr. William H. Seward vvas the especial object of these insults, 
and, he being the admitted leader of the Republicans in the senate, 
all men were insulted through him. Whether from philosopical 
serenity of temper, or from a positive lack of physical courage, he 
took these premeditated insults with a calmness which set many of 
his followers frantic with rage and shame. On one noted occasion Mr. 
Robert Toombs indulged in such terrible unjust denunciation of Seward 
and his followers, that the undersigned felt themselves forced to do 
something to vindicate themselves and their constituents, threatened 
by these means of a denial of equal representation in the senate. 

We consulted long and anxiously, and the result was a league by 
which we bound ourselves to resent any repetition of this conduct 
by challenge to fight, and then, in the precise words, the compact " to 
carry the quarrel into a coffin." 

After the lapse of half a generation the statement of this arrange- 
ment of this measure may have the appearance of bloodthirstiness, but 
it should be remembered that the causes which led to it were extremely 
grievous. Our constituents were well nigh deprived of their rights in 
congress by the insolence of our political oponents. Our very man- 
hood was daily called in question. Only one method of stopping the 
now [then] unendurable outrage was open, and that method required 
us to submit (because of the sentiment against duelling at home) to an 
ostracism if we defended ourselves, as galling as the endurance of the 
insults we encountered in the pursuit of our public duties. Neverthe- 
less this arrangement produced a cessation of the cause which induced 
us to make it, and when it became known that some northern senators 
were ready to tight for sufficient cause, the tone of their assailants 
were at once modified. 



2i6 B. F. WADE. 

We have drawn up and signed this paper as an interesting incident 
for those who come after us to study, as an example of what it once 
cost to be in favor of liberty, and to express such sentiments in the 
highest places of official life in the United States. 

This is a confidential memorandum. Only three copies exist, and 
we have each placed the copy we [severally] possess in our private 
and confidential papers, subject only to our order. 

(Signed) Simon Cameron, 

B. F. Wade, 
L. Chandler. 
Washington, May 26, 1874. 

Though in terms confidential the paper was 
intended to be at some time made public. Obvi- 
ously no harm can now accrue to the dead or liv- 
ing by permitting it to transpire. It is given here 
as written, with slight change in punctuation. 

The year 1856 was memorable for the Fre- 
mont campaign — Fremont the Pathfinder, whom 
brave Jessie Benton ran away with, bless her eyes! 
Fremont, the eighteen-day senator of Free Cali- 
fornia — a half myth alike of history and romance 
— one of the badly-used generals of the war. 

Mr. Seward was unquestionably the leading man. 
His sagacious adviser, Thurlow Weed, thought 
his day was not yet. His candidacy that year 
would have secured it in i860. Mr. Chase did 
not care for it. Judge John McLean alway wanted 
it. He was old, too old for fresh, rosy Rcpublica. 
The Blairs brought forward Fremont. He was 
nominated at Philadelphia in June. Wm. L. 
Dayton of New Jersey was placed with him on the 
ticket. New Jersey has furnished several defeated 
candidates for vice-president. 

The Democrats were obliged to pass their really 



B. F. WADE. 217 

best man, stout Sam Houston. His nomination 
would have been a rebuke to their entire brood south. 
Pierce and Douglas made persistent efforts. Pierce 
sent Buchanan on the English mission, and this 
brought him the golden opportunity to become the 
saddest, the most unhappy figure of American his- 
tory. He received 135 on the first ballot to 122 
for the President, and 33 for Douglas. Pierce ran 
down to half of one and was withdrawn. On the 
sixteenth, Buchanan was nominated, and Brecken- 
ridge had the second place with him. 

The Knownothings (American) had speedily 
split on slavery. The adherents of "the peculiar," 
and the shadows remaining of the Whigs, placed 
Fillmore and A. J. Donaldson in nomination also. 
What a ghostly business was that ! There was 
never such a mingling of the present with the past 
and future, as that campaign pi-esented. 

Mr. Buchanan carried every southern state but 
Maryland; and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana^ 
Illinois and California, 174 votes. The remaining 
free states, eleven in number, from Maine round 
to Iowa, cast their votes for Fremont — 114. 
Maryland, in the realms of shadow, gave her eight 
to Fillmore. The popular vote was — Democrats 
1,838,169; Republicans, 1,341,264; Americans, 
874.534- Buchanan thus reached the Presidency 
with a majority of 407,629 against him. The 
Democrats were greatly chagrined by the result. 
The Republicans were entirely satisfied. They were 
fully aware that they at the time were not ripe for 



2i8 B. F. WADE. 

power. The future was theirs as they belonged 
to it by aspiration. Under the emphasis of the 
results of the election, the remaining session of the 
Thirty-fourth congress assembled and wore and 
warred Kansas through to March 3, 1857. 

Mr. Buchanan had a good deal of dead wood 
lying about all over the north, from which a cabi- 
net might be constructed. He naturally, almost 
necessarily, placed Cass — then seventy-five years 
old — at the head. From his own state he selected 
Jeremiah S. Black for attorney-general — by no 
means dead wood — the ablest man, with the widest 
acquisition, of his party. Of almost wonderful 
force and energy of character, he was still without 
perceptible personal following. From the south 
he took Cobb and Floyd and Jake Thompson, 
with Toucy for the navy. Toucy was dead enough. 

That was also the year marked by the Dred Scott 
decision. That should have surprised no one. 
The judges, not walled in by precedent, were left 
to the influence of unconscious bias — as in the elec- 
toral commission of 1876. It was expected that 
slavery would greatly profit by this judicial aid. 
Its besotted advocates could not see that what- 
ever strengthened it south, where it was resist- 
less, must weaken it north ; that the united north 
would depose it, and that deposed, it would die — no 
matter what immediate agencies were employed by 
them. The Dred Scott decision equalled the fugi- 
tive slave act as an exciting cause. These and 
Kansas would be all sufficient. This, the first 



B. F. WADE. 219 

judgment of the supreme court that became an ex- 
citing popular theme, was added — a fresh empha- 
sizing cause of contention in the ensuing congress. 
The court sat in the half beehive-shaped room 
below — east-front, at the right as oi\^ passes 
the main lower entrance, now occupied by the 
Congressional Law library.* It sat quite under 
the senators, who with great freedom called in 
question its decision, arraigned and condemned 
it, and almost within hearing of the tribunes 
of the people in the other house, who consecrated 
it to derision and ridicule. 

If we glance at the Thirty-fifth congress we shall 
discover some noteworthy changes and additions. 
Broderick was there in the senate from California, 
and Harlan from Iowa. Cass had yielded to 
Chandler. Preston King succeeded Hamilton 
Fish. Simon Cameron entered that senate, as did 
Simmons from Rhode Island. So also came Doo- 
little from Wisconsin. In the house Owen Love- 
joy, Farnsworth, Henry L. Dawes, L. Q. C. Lamar 
and Frances C. Blair, jr. New York contributed an 
unusual number of new names to become notable. 
Among them Corning, Fenton, Olin and Sickles. 
Ohio's new names to grow conspicuous wereseveral, 
Cox, Groesbeck, Pendleton, Vallandigham — all 
Democrats, of course, while William Lawrence was 
added to the Republicans. Maynard made his first 
appearance there at this congress. Houston found 
a seat in that house now, where he had been be- 



*Said now to be the largest law library of the world, 



220 B. F. WADE. 

fore. Seven territories were represented in that 
body also. 

The long session began December 7, 1857, and 
ended the fourteenth of June, 1858. A notable 
incident of it was the presentation by Pugh of 
the resolutions of the Ohio legislature (by the ma- 
jority, of course), crouching, like Issachar, be- 
tween two burdens, now glorifying the Cincin- 
nati platform, on which Buchanan was elected. 
Pugh, on their presentation, delivered one of the 
finest of his finished orations, quite for the hour 
enchaining the galleries. Wade, who had mean- 
time been reelected, came down upon the impu- 
dent and impertinent contribution of the Ohio 
Democracy with good-natured contempt. He 
showed the value of this indorsement of the plat- 
form by Ohio, whose people, since its promulga- 
tion, had cast a majority of sixty thousand votes 
against it. For the rest, a few well-directed blows 
left the thing in ruins past patching. He had now, 
by steady attention to his duties, his practical good 
sense, freedom from mistakes, large intelligence, 
his clearness and certainty of vision, honesty and 
absolute sincerity, grown to a leading, a com- 
manding and entirely independent position in the 
senate. He had come to be not one of the oftenest 
heard, but one of the alway listened to, debaters, 
never speaking unless to add something to the 
volume of the right understanding of the subject 
in hand. He might not alway say anything new^ 
nor old things in a new way. His judgment was 



B. F. WADE. 221 

admirable. He saw quick and clear ; was capa- 
ble of prejudices. His mind was honest. He 
was brave in the utterance of his convictions. 
Men came to have trust in his level, practical views. 
They alway gave weight to the side he took on 
all non-partisan things. There are many things 
national, common to all men, policies, courses, 
conducts, to be pursued, that occupy much time, 
involve real doubt, about which all men want to 
be right. On all these the question was, " What 
does old Ben Wade say about it?" He usually 
came in late, with well considered views, and the 
thing was not regarded as thoroughly debated till 
he was heard. Men, after all, are more influenced 
by weight and strength of character. Men of 
these qualifications have alway been true .govern- 
ors. Thus estimated, our senator had few peers. 
He never referred to the people — his constituents 
— probably cared little what they thought. The 
thing he believed he said, the thing right he did. 
Time lapsed. Many things were considered — 
grave and numerous — the homestead scheme, a 
Pacific railroad. Many things, in the presence, 
under the shadow of the o-reat coming- events, 
so ominously cast before, and for which the dis- 
cussions, the irritations of the great growing and 
ever growing great issues — the very brooding over 
which by the reticent northern mind, admirably 
and all unconsciously, fitted the people for, while 
they conducted them now rapidly to the battle's 
edge. 



222 B. F. WADE. 

The year 1858 came with the state elections — 
elections for the house of the Thirty-sixth con- 
gress. The second session lapsed, and the spring 
and summer of 1859, with incipient steps for the 
decisive contest of i860, in which empire was to 
be lost and won — the Republic's fate for good or 
ill to be cast. 

The old causes of political war with new fea- 
tures and incidents constantly recurring, had 
become chronic. Comparative peace and quiet 
were the rule over the northern states, as at the 
south. Summer ripened, passed September, and 
the season lapsed to serene October, ran to its 
middle, passed that. Can any man now tell how, 
of whom he first heard it — the strangest thing in 
American history? It stole upon men's con- 
sciousness in a day of absolute serene repose, that 
seventeenth of October, 1859. John Brown at the 
head of an armed band — seventeen — was in posses- 
sion of the armory — the arsenal — at Harper's Ferry, 
had fortified it, was besieged by a Virginian army 
there. Never such a prodigy dropped from the 
serene heavens on the unexpectant earth, nor 
ever one of more awful portent. Men did not 
believe it. It grew upon them — was true. The 
north had heard of John Brown. What they had 
heard came warped, refracted by the Kansas at- 
mosphere. They knew nothing of the darker lines 
and shades, if not stains, which, estimated in the 
white light of to-day, make men wish to account 
for as the product of a sadly unbalanced intellect. 



B. F. WADE. 223 

That really was the tocsin ringing out through 
the land — heard through all lands — the foe is 
coming ! Arm ! Arm ! On the reassembling of 
congress scarcely had the senate come together on 
call, when Mason of Virginia offered his resolution 
of investigation into that deplorable affair. 

It was the hope, the expectation, to fasten at 
least the odium, probably the responsibility, of this 
hair-brained adventure upon anti-slavery Republican 
north. Mr. Trumbull moved an important amend- 
ment. No Republican opposed investigation. The 
southern leaders were first heard — bitter, denuncia- 
tory, yet with a common air of self-gratulation, of 
incipient triumph. Abolitionism was about to be 
delivered into their hands. The account of blood 
scored against them in Kansas would now be set 
off, balanced. Mr. Wade addressed the .senate 
early in the debate. He would not speak but for 
the extraordinary language of the Virginia sena- 
tors. Obviously the intention was to swell the 
present great volume of public excitement. He 
had been specially referred to. It was declared 
that one purpose was to ascertain the feeling of 
the north in regard to the act. The purpose to 
make it pafiiccps in sympathy. Mr. Mason 
explained. His colleague, Hunter, may have said 
some such thing. Mr. Wade cared little which 
of them said it. He sketched the career of Brown 
in Kansas, spoke of his personal qualities, of his 
march on Harper's Ferry, quoted Governor Wise's 
encomium of him, and showed the absurdity of 



224 B. F. WADE. 

attempting to make the north responsible for him ; 
quoted the declarations of the older great southern 
men from Jefferson to Clay against slavery, to 
show how widely and fatally the south had 
departed from their teachings. The tone of the 
whole was moderate, the temper admirable. I 
quote an average passage : 

Do I stand here to accuse a gentleman who is a slaveholder of the 
south with crime ? I have never done so. You may say that if we 
regard slavery as wrong, and as a robbery of the rights of men, we 
should accuse you of being criminal. Well sir, the logic would seem 
to be good enough, were it not modified by the fact that with you it is 
deemed a necessity. I do not know what you can do with it ; I was 
almost about to say that I do not care what you do with it ; I will say, 
it is none of my business what you do with it, and I never undertake 
to interfere with it. To be sure, believing it to be wrong — wrong to 
yourselves and wrong to those whom you hold in this abject condition 
— I wish that you could see the light as I see it ; but if you do not, it 
is a matter of your own concern, and not of mine. I can very well 
have charity towards you, because with all my opposition to your insti- 
tution, I can hardly doubt that if we had changed places, and my lot 
had been cast among you, under like circumstances, my opinions on 
this subject might be different, and I might be here, perhaps, as fierce 
a fire-eater as I am now defending against fire. 1 can understand 
these things, and I accuse no man. 

This was the man who defied Toombs. He was 
in the ascendant now. 

John Sherman had already gained the enmity 
of the southerners. Had been assailed on the 
floor of the senate. Thus Mr. Wade defended 
him : 

There is one thing more which I will notice in passing. The sena- 
tor from Georgia [Mr. Iverson] saw fit, in his place in the senate, to 
assail my colleague in the house of representatives (Mr. Sherman), and 
to impeach him because of a transaction which he characterized as 
exceedingly dishonorable, and which he thought should go to destroy 



B. F. WADE. 225 

that confidence that is reposed in one so situated. When I heard his 
denunciations I was happy to find that the senator did not accuse Mr. 
Sherman of any erroneous vote, or of any wrong action. Mr. Sher- 
man's course, in the other branch of congress, has been known of all 
men for some four years past. He has been a very active and a very 
worthy member ; and if there is anything wrong in any principle that 
he had advocated or any vote that he has given, I am sure that the 
vigilance of that astute senator would have_ found it out. I say, then, I 
was exceedingly gratified to find that my friend in the other house was so 
little assailable upon this fioor, or anywhere else. We consider him as 
one of the brightest ornaments of the state of Ohio. That great state 
seeks to do him honor, and I rejoice to know that the great party to 
which I belong repose in him the utmost confidence. They have found 
nothing in him but what they approve ; and the senator, after all his 
investigations, could not find more than this, that Mr. Sherman had 
recommended the circulation of a certain book.* Now, I want to ask 
the senator if there is anything in that book that he thinks dangerous 
to the people of any section of this country ? I want to know from that 
senator if he believes that book cannot safely be intrusted to the hands 
of any freeman in this government ? The senator does not choose to 
answer me. 

Mr. Iverson, Mr. President, I do not choose to stultify myself by 
answering any such question as that. It is too apparent to any man 
of common sense who has read the book, what would be the effect if 
its recommendations were carried out. 

Mr. Wade. Well, sir, since the question has been up, I have taken 
some pains to look through that book, and I find nothing there but ar- 
guments addressed by a non slaveholder of a slaveholding state to his 
fellow non-slaveholders in those states, laying down rules and regula- 
tions for their proceedings, and arguing this great question of slavery 
as it affects the interests of non-slaveholders in the slaveholding states. 
Unless such arguments are unlawful there. I see nothing in the book 
but what is proper for the consideration of all men, who take an inter- 
est in these matters. Why, sir, has it come to this, in free America, 
that there must be a censorship of the press instituted — that a man can 

^'Impending crisis of the South,' by Hinton Rowan Helper of North 
Carolina — must be the book — presenting a sharp and startling eco- 
nomic view of slave and free industries contrasted, now forgotten. Mr. 
Helper secured a recommendation of it by many members of the house. 
He and his book were banished the south, and the gentlemen indors- 
ing it, one and all, tabooed by southern men. 



226- B. F. WADE. 

not give currency to a book containing arguments that he thinks es- 
sentially affect the rights of whole classes of the free population of this 
nation ? I hope not, and I believe not. 

Why, sir, the great body of the statistical information in that book, 
as I read it, is drawn from the census of the United States, from your 
public documents, and from the archives of the nation. Is it improper 
that arguments deduced from these sources should be-addressed to the 
free population of this country anywhere ? If they may not be, it is 
the hardest argument against the institution I have yet heard. If 
we really have an institution that we cherish — are seeking to spread 
over our land, so delicate in its texture that the free people can not 
have information that they themselves claim— I say again, it is fraught 
with an inference more fatal to that institution than any I have heard 
of yet. 

The following, the closing paragraphs, are a fair 
specimen of his method and style of speech, as of 
his dealing with the southerns: 

Mr. President, I have pursued this subject much further than I in- 
tended when I arose. I have heard the muttering thunder of disunion 
greeting my ears through all the southern hemisphere. All your prin- 
cipal papers have already fixed upon a contingency when this Union 
shall end. In some of the southern states, if I read aright, proceedings 
are pending now, having for their object an overturning of this govern- 
ment, and the erection upon its ruins of a southern Confederacy ; and 
this idea is brought into the halls of congress, and we are compelled 
to listen by the hour to speeches, filled with denunciations of our party, 
telling us that the Union is to be dissolved if the people elect as Pres- 
ident an honorable man, of a great predominant party, holding to 
principles precisely such as the old fathers of the government held. 
The Republican platform is nothing more nor less than the old Repub- 
lican platform, marking the land-marks of the government as laid down 
by them. We claimjno more ; we claim to live up to those doctrines ; 
we claim not to harm the hair of the head of any section of this Union! 
and yet we are to be told by the hour that if we succeed in wresting 
this government from your hands, and placing a constitutional man in 
that great office, according to the forms of the constitution, you will 
nevertheless make this a contingency on which you will disrupt and 
destroy the government. 

I say to gentlemen on the other side, these are very harsh doctrines 

to preach in our ears. What, sir, are you going to play this game with 

t go into the election with us, with a settled purpose and 



B. F. WADE. 227 

design, that if you win you will take all the honors and emoluments 
and offices of the government into your own clutches ; but if we win, 
you will break up the establishment and turn your backs on us? Is 
that the fair dealing to which we are invited ? I am happy to know 
that you propose to make that contingency turn upon an event that 
will make it impossible to be consummated. The government, to-day, 
is all in your hands ; it has been in your hands for years ; you are par- 
taking of all its emoluments, all its measures you have moulded, and 
you have designated the men who receive its honors. Year after year 
you have done this, and men have come here from the free states, men 
holding our opinions ; we have sat here patiently, but we have been 
deprived of all the honors and emoluments that flow from this govern- 
ment, as though we were its enemies ; but did we ever complain ? Not 
at all. We did not e.xpect that we should share any of those favors, 
unless it should be so that our glorious fprinciples should commend 
themselves to a majority of the people of these United States. 

But, sir, if it should turn out so — and Heaven only knows whether it 
will or not — I give gentlemen now to understand, this Union will not 
easily be disrupted. Gentlemen talk about it in a very business-like 
way, as though it were a magazine to be blown up whenever you touch 
the fire to it ; as if, on a given day, at amoment's warning, at your own 
election, at any time and in any event, you can dissolve the bonds of 
this great Union. Do you not know, sir, that this great fabric has 
been more than eighty years in building, and do you believe you can 
destroy it in a day ? I tell you, nay. 

Sir, when you talk so coolly about dissolving this Union, do you 
know the difficulties through which you will have to wade before that 
end can be consummated ; have you reflected that between the north 
and the south there are no mountain ranges that are impassable, and 
no desert wastes which commonly divide great nations one from an- 
other ? Do you not know that, whether we love one another or not, 
we are from the same stock, speak the same language ; and although 
institutions have made considerable difference between us, the great 
Anglo-Saxon type pervades the whole. We are bound together by great 
navigable rivers, interlacing and hnking together all the states of this 
Union. Innumerable railroads also connect us, and an immense 
amount of commerce binds all the parts, besides domestic relations in 
a thousand ways. And do you believe you can rend all this asunder 
without a struggle? I tell you, sir, you will search history in vain for 
a precedent ; there has been no such government as this that was ever 
rent asunder by any internal commotion. I know that Poland was 
broken up and divided, but it was by external force. We are found in 



228 B. F. WADE. 

the same ship ; we are married forever, for better or for worse. We 
may make our condition very uncomfortable by bickerings if we will, 
but nevertheless there can be no divorcement between us. There is no 
way by which either one section or the other can get out of the Union. 
I do not say whether it is desirable or not. There is no way by which 
it can be effected, but least of all on the contingency that you have 
spoken of. I tell the senator from Georgia, if you wait until a Repub- 
Hcan President is elected, you will wait a day too late. Why not do 
it now, when, I say again, you have the government in your own hands? 
Why tell us that it is to be done when our candidate is elected ? I 
say to you, Mr. President, he would be but a sorry Republican who, 
elected by a majority of the votes of the American people, and conse- 
quently backed by them, should fail to vindicate his right to the Pres- 
idential chair. He will do it. 

No man in the north is to be intimidated by these threats of disso- 
lution that are thrown into our teeth daily, and I ask senators on the 
other side, why do you do it ? I know not what motive you can have 
in preaching the dissolution of this Union day by day. If you are 
going to do it, is it necessary to give us notice of it ? There is no law 
requiring that you should serve notice on us that you are going to dis- 
solve the Union ; [laughter] and I should think it would be better to 
do it at once, and to do it without alarming our vigilance. It grates 
harshly on my ears ; and I say to gentlemen, that if a Republican Pres- 
ident shall be constitutionally elected to preside for the next four years 
over this people, my word for it, preside he will. Do not senators 
know that an attempt to dissolve this Union impHes civil war, with all 
its attendant horrors ; the marching and countermarching of vast 
armies ; battles to be fought, and oceans of blood to be spilled, with 
all the vindictive malice and ill-will that civil war never fails to bring ? 
And do gentlemen believe the wild tumult of such a struggle peculiarly 
favorable to the growth and perpetuity of this delicate institution? 
Why, sir, if it can not stand the mild arguments of Helper's book, how 
can it abide the ultimate shock of arms? But, Mr. President, such 
things shall never be. The souls and bodies of traitors may dissolve 
on the gibbet, but this Union shall stand forever. 

Mr. President, I have said all and more than I intended, and I re- 
gret that it has become necessary for me to say anything on account of 
what has been said on the other side. I regret that at this early period 
of the session we should get interlocked with this old controversy. I 
wish it might have been postponed. I shall vote for this resolution 
most cheerfully, and will give it the furthest and most extended sweep 
that you may desire, because it is my wish, if there is any misunder- 



B. F. WADE. 



229 



standing with regard to the participants in this affair, that you should 
have the greatest latitude that you can desire to ferret them out, and 
make them known to the public. 

One of the most extended of Mr. Wade's earliest 
speeches, was that on Senator Brown's resolutions, 
that the territories were the property of all the 
people alike, to be enjoyed by each "with his 
property of every species alike, delivered January 
18, i860. It covers the whole field, was one of 
his best considered, compact, sustained level 
efforts ; without flights, without depressions or 
weak places. A deliberate, calm speaker, glowing 
only with mind at full play, he alway extempor- 
ized, without note or memoranda of any kind. It 
will even now well repay perusal. The moral 
right of slavery had been stoutly contended for. 
I quote what he says of this with the residue, from 
the bottom of p. 12 of a popular edition. 

I have nothing to say of slavery in the states. I do not wish to say, 
and would not say, a word about it, because I am candid enough to 
confess that I do not know what you can do with it there. I want no 
finger with it in your own states. I leave it to yourselves. It is bad 
enough, to be sure, that four millions of unpaid labor now is operating 
there, in competition with the free labor of the north ; but I have noth- 
ing to say of that. Within your own boundaries, conduct it your own 
way ; but it is wrong. Your new philosophy cannot stand the scrutiny 
of the present age. It is a departure from the views and principles of 
your fathers ; yea, it is founded in the selfishness and cupidity of man, 
and not in the justice of God. There is the difficulty with your institu- 
tution. There is what makes you fear that it may, sooner or later, be 
overturned ; but, sir, I shall do nothing to overturn it. If I could do it 
with the wave of my hand in your states, I should not know how to do 
it, or what you should do. All I say is, that, in the vast territories of 
this nation, I will allow no such curse to have a foothold. If I am 
right, and slavery stands branded and condemned by the God of 
nature, then, for Heaven's sake go with me to limit it, and not propa- 



230 



B. F. WADE. 



gate this curse. I am candid enough to admit that you gentlemen on 
the other side, if you ever become convinced, as I doubt not you will, 
that this institution does not stand by the rights of nature nor by the 
will of God, you yourselves will be willing to put a limit to it. You 
have only departed because your philosophy has led you away. Sir, I 
leave you with the argument. 

And now Mr. President, in conclusion, I would ask senators what 
they find in the Republican party that is so repulsive to them that they 
must lay hold of the pillars of this Union, and demolish and destroy 
the noblest government that has ever existed among men? For what? 
Not certainly for any evil we have done ; for, as I said to start with, 
you are more prosperous now than you ever were before. What are 
our principles? Our principles are only these : we hold that you shal^ 
limit slavery. Believing it wrong, believing it inconsistent with the 
best interests of the people, we demand that it shall be limited ; and 
this limitation is not hard upon you, because you have land enough for 
a population as large as Europe, and century after century must roll 
away before you can occupy what you now have. The next thing 
which we hold, and which I have not time to discuss, is the great prin- 
ciple of the homestead bill — a measure that will be up I trust this ses- 
sion, and which I shall ask to press through, as the greatest measure I 
know of to mold in the right direction the territories belonging to this 
nation ; to build up a free yeomanry capable of maintaining an inde- 
pendent republican government forever. We demand, also, that there 
shall be a protection to our own labor against the pauper labor o 
Europe. We have alway contended for it, but you have always 
stricken it down. 

These are the measures, and these are tlie only measures, I know of 
that the great Republican party now stand forth as the advocates of. Is 
there anything repulsive or wrong about them? You may not agree to 
them ; you may differ as to our views;- but is there anything in them 
that should make traitors of us, that should lead a man to pull down the 
pillars of his government, and bury it up, in case we succeed ? Sir 
these principles for which we contend are as old as the government it- 
self. They stand upon the very foundation of those who framed your 
constitution. They are rational and right ; they are the concessions 
that ought to be made to northern labor against you, who have monop- 
ohzed four millions of compulsory labor and uncompensated labor, in 
competition with us. 

There is one thing more that 1 wil say before I sit down ; but what 
I am now about to propose is not part and parcel of the Republican 
platform, that I know of. There is in these United States a race of 



B. F. WADE. 



231 



men who are poor, weak, uninfluential, incapable of taking care of them- 
selves. I mean the free negroes, who are despised by all, repudiated 
by all ; outcasts upon the face of the earth, without any fault of theirs 
that I know of; but they are the victims of a deep-rooted prejudice, 
and I do not stand here to argue whether that prejudice be right or 
wrong. I know such to be the fact. It is there immovable. It is per- 
fectly impossible that these two races can mhabit the same place, and 
be prosperous and happy. I see' that this species of population are 
just as abhorrent to the southern states, and perhaps more so, than to 
the north. Many of those states are now, as I think, passing unjust 
laws to drive these men off or subject them to slavery; they are flock- 
ing into the free states, and we have objections to them. Now, the 
proposition is, that this great government owes it to justice, owes it to 
those individuals, owes it to itself and to the free white population of 
the nation, to provide a means whereby this class of unfortunate men 
may emigrate to some congenial clime, where ihey may be maintained 
to the mutual benefit of all, both white and black. This will insure a 
separation of the races. Let them go into the tropics. There I under- 
stand, are vast tracts of the most fertile and inviting land, in a climate 
perfectly congenial to that class of men, where the negro will be pre- 
dominant ; where his nature seems to be improved, and all his faculties, 
both mental and physical, are fully developed, and where the white 
man degenerates in the same proportion as the black man prospers. 
Let them go there ; let them be separated ; it is easy to do it. I 
understand that negotiations may easily be effected with many of the 
Central American states, by which they will take these people, and 
confer upon them homesteads, confer upon them great privileges, if 
they will settle there. They are so easy of access that, a nucleus being 
formed, they will go of themselves and relieve us of the burden. They 
will be so far removed from us that they cannot form a disturbing ele- 
ment in our political economy. The far-reaching sagacity of Thomas 
Jefferson and others suggested this plan. Nobody that I know of ash 
found abetter. I understand, too, that in these regions, to which I 
would let them go, there is no prejudice against them. All colors 
seem there to live in common, and they would be glad that these men 
should go among them. 

I say that I hope this great principle will be engrafted into our plat- 
form as a fundamental article of our faith, for I hold that the govern- 
ment that fails to defend and secure any such dependent class of free- 
men in the possession of life, liberty and happiness, is to that extent a 
tyranny and despotism. I hope after that is done, to hear no more 
about the negro equality or anything of that kind. Sir, we shall be 



232 B. F. WADE. 

as glad to rid ourselves of these people, if we can do it consistently with 
justice, as anybody else can. We will not, however, perpetrate injustice 
against them. We will not drive them out, but we will use every in- 
ducement to pursuade these unfortunate men to find a home there, so 
as to separate the races, and all will go better than it can under any 
other system that we can devise. I say again, I hope that the demand 
of justice and good policy will be complied with ; and by the consent 
of all, this will be done ; and if it is not done with the assent of all, I do 
hope it will be part and parcel of the great Republican platform ; for I 
think it consists with right, with justice, and with a proper regard for 
the welfare of these unfortunate men. 

Many new nien appeared in the thirty-sixth 
congress, especially in the house. Among them 
Charles Francis Adams, Roscoe Conkling, William 
Windom, Holman and Porter of Indiana. Cor- 
win reappeared there, Ashley and Hutchins with 
him from Ohio — her people exchanging Joshua R 
Giddings for John Hutchins. Van Wyck came in 
with Conkling and Reagan from Texas, Roger A. 
Pryor from Virginia and John F. Potter from Wis- 
consin. 

The house had an extraordinary experience in 
reaching that parliamentary form. Mr. Sherman 
had exhibited in his Kansas mission unusual high 
quaHties of courage, tact and coolness. The Re- 
publicans placed him in nomination for speaker — 
if possible a more trying position through the pro- 
tracted struggle, and, though he failed in reaching 
the desk and gavel, he was not defeated in the 
higher sense. Such men seldom are. His party 
finally withdrew him and succeeded in electing 
Pennington of New Jersey. 

i860 — characters of fire inscribed on its page 
of the American chronicle. It saw the mar- 



B. F. WADE. 



233 



shaled forces of the great antagonists, in citizens' 
panoply, in the ordained forms of the law, on the 
national field, to determine, by sheer weight of 
numbers, the great contest, so far as political action 
could- settle it — so far as a continuance or transfer 
of the legislative and executive power of the gov- 
ernment could determine it. Beyond was acquies- 
cence or armed aggression. The contest of '56 was 
but a test of strength and skill on the part of the 
youthful party. Now mature and confident, it se- 
lected its leader with the utmost care and con- 
fidence. Defeat to it, postponement only. To 
the host of slavery defeat was destruction. So its 
leaders regarded and proclaimed. Destruction of 
the old and a recasting in new forms was the 
translation. 

Mr. Douglas acted in character throughout the 
great struggle. Mr. Buchanan sent Kansas with 
the Border Ruffian Lecompton constitution to con- 
gress for admission. Stimulated by Broderick, 
there occurred the fatal parting. The south were 
imperious for a slave state. Douglas was not ready 
for that. It would assuredly lose him Illinois, cut 
the political earth from under his feet. Lecompton 
was carried through the senate, thirty-three to 
twenty-five. Broderick, Pugh and Stuart, with 
Douglas, Crittenden and Bell were with the Re- 
publicans on this. The administration was power- 
less in the house. Then came the infamous Ener- 
lish"^ scheme to bribe the settlers of Kansas to 

* The late Democratic candidate for vice-president, English. 



234 B. F. WADE. 

adopt the Lecompton constitution — it had of 
Course never been voted upon, even by the Border 
Ruffians — by a huge land grant Notwithstanding 
the defection of ten or twelve Democrats, this 
scheme passed the house, one hundred and twelve 
to one hundred and fifty-three. Of course it 
passed the senate, f 

One fair vote was accorded Kansas, and she re- 
jected the offer by a majority of ten thousand. With 
prestige somewhat regained at the north, Douglas 
made the great contest with Lincoln of Illinois. 
It was a struggle for the Presidency. Douglas 
retained his seat. He lost the south, divided the 
Democratic party, and it was thus that the north 
and south came to stand in array against each 
other. In his absence he was in effect cut off by 
a set of resolutions passed in the senate. Douglas 
replied by letter. All this preceded the actual 
arraying of forces on the field in i860. 

The struggle between the Democratic factions 
came off in April at Charleston. On the great 
test question Douglas beat the south. It seceded 
as usual, and nominated Breckenridge and Lane. 
The Douglas wing adjourned to Baltimore and 
nominated him and Johnson, Hershel V. 

Meantime the fossilized Whigs, the remains of 
the American Knownothing — do nothing men, 
who would not act with either wing of the Demo- 

+ Mr. Cox makes much of his voievs. the Lecompton constitution. 
He says nothing of his vote for the Enghsh bill. See his ' Three De- 
cades in Congress.' 



B. F. WADE. 235 

crats, and stood still while the Republicans went 
on — put Bell and Everett in nomination at Balti- 
more. There are men with their faces ever toward 
the past, who, like the fabled gnomes said to haunt 
and linger about the place where their dead treas- 
ures are buried, never can be induced to go for- 
ward with their age — Conservatives. 

The story of the Chicago convention of i860, its 
men and doings, is not even to be glanced at. It 
is everywhere written in word and deed. Nor yet 
of the great campaign it inaugurated. Men see 
the hand of providence, luck, fortune, as their 
temperaments or habits of mind may be, in the 
division of the Democratic party. It rendered the 
success of the Republicans certain. Suppose the 
Democrats had taken the Douglas platform with 
himself and Breckenridge on it. The south would 
have been as certain. On his platform north, 
what would have been the result ? Fortunately 
the question is without practical interest. It is 
probable that the Republicans would then have 
beaten Douglas. Many Democrats, more Know- 
nothings, would then have voted for Lincoln. 

The popular vote stood: for Lincoln,! ,866,352; 
Douglas, 1,375,157 ; Breckenridge, 845,763 ; Bell, 
589,581. 

Lincoln received one hundred and eighty elec- 
toral votes, Breckenridge seventy-two, Bell thirty- 
nine, Douglas twelve. 

These figures furnish the factors of curious prob- 
lems under our complex system of election. 



236 B. F. WADE. 

Under constitutional sanctions, the Republicans 
prevailed. The south, still in full possession of all 
the departments of the government, executed her 
threat. Her senators departed from an open 
session, and, through the door thus opened, way- 
worn, heroic Kansas entered the indissoluble Union. 

The hands of one of the great orators of Greek 
tragedy, wielding the forces of destiny, could have 
wrought nothing historically more dramatic than 
this closing scene, indeed than the whole of this 
great first act, from the formation of the conspir- 
acy, the gathering of the forces, the confusion and 
divison of the more powerful, to defeat and flight 
— historically, the whole is eminently dramatic. 

These wise, poetic, true-born artists never ex- 
hibited blood and death on the stage. That was 
always within. The chorus in their actual pres- 
ence, saw and interpreted to the outside world. In 
no sense shall I become even a chorus. Out- 
side scenes will have but scanty mention. 

The Thirty-sixth congress was a stormy, not to 
say a quarrelsome body of men, with many attrac- 
tions and personal scenes. Conspicuous was the 
Pryor-Potter episode. The Virginian challenged 
the western, who promptly accepted and named 
bowic knives. The southern declined. The weap- 
ons were not the arms of a gentleman, though 
eminently southern.^''' 

Prior was more fortunate with Edgerton. 

* Thad Stevens thereupon suggested dungforks, The meeting 
never took place. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Mr. Lincoln and the Thirty-seventh Congress. — Their Labor. — Condi- 
tions. — Blair. — Wade. — Stevens. — Stanton. —Seward. —Chase. —The 
Crittenden Resolutions. — Extra Sesssion. — Bull Run. — Wade There, 
— Committee on Conduct of the War. — Congress Clarified. — Vir- 
ginia. — Dismembered. — Vallandigham and the Democracy. — Clamor 
Against Mr. Lincoln. — The Davis- Wade Manifesto. — The Thirty- 
eighth Conscription. — Schenck. — Garfield. — Blaine. 

The first Continental congress was the natural 
product of its tinae, convened to give expression 
to its sentiment, and take counsel of its exigencies. 
Washington and the first congress under the new 
constitution were elected to put its new machinery 
in motion, adjust, superintend and impart life and 
vigor, steadiness and courage to its infant 
processes. Mr. Madison was elected, as was the 
Twelfth congress with him, in the midst of the then 
chronic irritation between the Republic and Great 
Britain, and with the expectation of war between 
the two countries. They declared and fought it. 
Each body, each President knew what he was elected 
to do. Mr. Lincoln, his cabinet and the Thirty- 
seventh congress were elected to do anything, 
everything, except what fell upon them to do — 
fight the greatest civil war of all history — one of 



238 B. F. WADE. 

the hugest wars of modern times, involving larger 
armies, a wider theatre than any of the Napoleonic 
wars. It came upon them by surprise utter. As 
we have seen, mentally, morally, but uncon- 
sciously, the people of both sides, with all the 
leaders of the north, pressed forward blindly to 
the inevitable. The great contest passed logically 
through all stages, moral, political, legislative, 
judicial, and no man of the north, few of the south, 
were in the least aware of it, until armed they 
confronted each other, and then neither believed 
the other intended very war. It amazes us now to 
recall how utterly we misunderstood each other — 
one and all. On the morning of February 11, 
1 86 1, the President-elect started on his memorable 
progress through the northern states to the capital. 
He reached it to find seven states of the Republic 
with an organized government, a President and 
congress, its seat at Montgomery. Its con- 
gress convened there the fourth of the same 
month, organized, adopted a constitution the sev- 
enth, and elected its executive the eighth — three 
days before he left his home at Springfield. Mr. 
Lincoln was inaugurated in due form, in the 
midst of secretly armed friends, who were greatly 
relieved when they saw him in possession of the 
executive mansion. They feared assassination 
and armed riot, to suppress which General Scott 
made the best disposition of his scant force possi- 
ble, and with his officers remained in command of 
them. Still war was not believed in. Nor yet 



B. P. WAD 2. 239 

when the forts in Charleston harbor were reduced, 
even then the assembHng of congress was delayed 
till July Fourth. 

That body convened to find over three hundred 
thousand Union soldiers in the field. On the day 
of its opening there were twenty-five thousand 
marched through Pennsylvania avenue. At that 
time quite one-third of the available military popu- 
lation of the south were under arms, from its then 
eleven states, with its capital not a hundred miles 
from Washington. How much time and blood it 
cost us to get there ! 

At that time position in the government, execu- 
tive or legislative, did not indicate the real position 
of the man in the incipient, rapidly developing 
contest. That depended entirely upon the per- 
sonal qualities of the individual. In such times 
the occasion finds them out ; elects and conducts 
them to their places. Mr. Lincoln was not elected 
to carry on a war, had few of the qualities save 
courage, firmness, purpose, that make warriors. 
Nor had any of his cabinet larger endowments in 
that direction save Montgomery Blair. ^ 

In the senate Wade, Chandler, Baker and one 
or two more were the warriors. Thad Stevens and 

* He not only had enough beUigerency for the cabinet— if his col- 
leagues would share it — for the war, but to conduct many private and 
personal wars at the same time. " The Blairs," said he to me, "when 
they go in for a fight, go in for a funeral." He was at feud with Stan- 
ton before the rebelhon — they were not on speaking terms. He 
soon reached the same stage with Chase, in which Frank Blair was his 
ally. 



240 B. F. WADE. 

a very few of the house had fighting qualities. 
Stanton, when he reached the war office, developed 
the native elements which find exercise in war. 
He and Blair agreed in two things, boundless ad- 
miration and confidence in Wade and determina- 
tion to extinguish the rebellion. Blair was the 
only man who had a just conception of real war. 
He was a graduate of West Point, and why he and 
Cameron did not have each other's places doubt- 
less was because Mr. Lincoln did not expect war. 
Mr. Wade, Stevens, the President, Stanton, and 
the .average man then supposed war meant to 
march upon the enemy by the shortest route, as- 
sail, hang to him, and lick him in the most direct 
way and in the shortest possible time. 1 fear all 
the men of that opening day had the same idea, 
and hence the *' on to Richmond " cry. Warriors 
are born. War makes soldiers, and by a slow and 
awfully expensive process. The Indians assemble 
the warriors of the tribe, fight a battle and go 
home. The war is over. We were aboriginal. 
By strength and force of character, indomitable, 
inflexible, never in doubt or wavering, with a fixed 
purpose to start with. 

Mr. Wade soon came to be the first man in the 
senate. His qualities, experience, temper, even 
level headedness, made him that. The American 
people knew little, saw little of the men in con- 
gress during the entire war, and cared nothing for 
them so that they created and supplied the 



B. F. WADE. 241 

money and backed Mr. Lincoln and the secretary 
of war. 

Thad Stevens, ''Old Thad," as the leader of the 
more popular house — nobody cares much for the 
senate, save to get into it — was the popular con- 
gressional idol of the war. Next him ranked 
Wade— "Old Ben Wade," as he had already 
become. Of these two men, with Edwin M. 
Stanton, it may truly be said they were the most 
revolutionary men on the Union side of our history 
since the days of the Adamses and Jefferson. 
They had one purpose — the extinction of the re- 
bellion. Whatever at hand seemed best fitted for 
that, they used. No scruple of the written consti- 
tution troubled either. The conservative notion 
of preserving the constitution, as next to slavery, 
the thing not to be touched, always provoked their 
derision. At the first, the rebels depended on the 
constitution to ward us off. 

The Thirty-sixth congress, although it organ- 
ized territories without excluding slavery, had yet 
the courage, under the lead of Seward, Wade and 
Fessenden, in the senate, and Stevens, E. B. 
Washburn, Corwin, Conkling, Kelley and others, 
to reject the Crittenden compromise — an amend- 
ment of the constitution prohibiting the abolition 
of slavery, did many things subservient in its desire 
to propitiate the south — it may well be questioned 
whether that body ever went so far in that direction 
as did the Thirty-seventh, at the called session of 
July Fourth. 



242 B. F. WADE. 

Mr. Crittenden, then seventy-five years of age, 
had been transferred to the house, to make room 
for Breckenridge in the senate, produced his 
scarcely less famous resolution in the house the day 
after the first Bull Run battle. The first part 
stated that the war existed by the act of the south. 
It then declared its purpose and limit, on the part 
of the Union, as follows : 

That this war is not waged on their part in any spirit of oppression, 
or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrow- 
ing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those 
states, but to defend and maintain the SUPREMACY of the constitution, 
and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and rights of 
the several states unimpared ; and that as soon as these objects are 
accomplished the war ought to cease. 

On the full house this without a word, under the 
previous question, passed, one hundred and sev- 
enteen for to two against it. The two were John 
F. Potter of Wisconsin, and one of the younger 
of Ohio's new men. Lovejoy, though in his seat, 
remained silent. It was passed in the senate after 
full discussion, by thirty for to five against it. All 
the northern senators voted for it, save Sumner, 
who spoke, but did not vote, and Trumbull, who 
voted against it on verbal grounds with the rebel 
Breckenridge, and Polk, and Johnson of Missouri, 
and Powell. Wade and Chandler remained silent 
and voted for it. Hale did not vote. The slave- 
holders voted against it because it charged the war 
upon them. 

The Republicans, with Stevens and all of the 



B. F. WADE. 243 

house, would then so wage the war as to hurt the 
south the least, and slavery not at all.'"'^ 

The resolution as the unanimous declaration of 
congress, so significant and so amazing, which no 
man of that majority now speaks of, and is now a 
curious study, was everywhere not only accepted 
north but constituted the state platform entire of 
the Ohio Republicans in 1863. It is probable this 
was the prudent, the wiser course. Perhaps the 
cooler-headed Wade, Fessenden and Stevens saw 
clearly enough the real objective point of the war, 
but knew very well that the declared purpose of 
the war at that time, to abolish slavery, would 
greatly diminish the northern ardor and weaken 
the hands of the government, if it was not fatal to 
the cause of the Union. In the old war we strug- 
gled to maintain the birthright of Englishmen ; 
contending for that, we came directly upon the 
birthright of Americans. In this we took up 
arms to enforce the constitution — whatever it 
meant — as to slavery. We very soon proclaimed 
the abolition of slavery, and amended the constitu- 
tion finally. The most of human goods are 
reached thus collaterally, incidentally, from the 
astrologers, alchemists, to Columbus. 

* The two opponents were called to account, and boldly declared 
that slavery having thrust by the protecting constitution should be ex- 
tinguished. One of them was emphatic. He declared his associates 
were after all afraid of slavery. They went about silent and tremulous 
lest, like a she dragon, it would come and devour them. There was 
something of this in both houses then. It will perhaps please the 
enemies of these gentlemen to be reminded that each was defeated for 
the next congress. 



244 B. F. WADE. 

The session closed August 6. Congress was 
called to provide for the war. Its session was but 
a giant committee of ways and means. It called 
for five hundred thousand volunteers, and twenty- 
five thousand regulars. It appropriated five 
hundred million dollars for the army alone. The 
navy was augmented by immense appropriations. 
The repairs of old and the building of new, strong, 
powerful ships, the improvement of arms, inven- 
tion of new ordnance, new projectiles, all calling 
into play the native creative genius of our north- 
ern people. Duties on imports were increased, a 
loan of two hundred and fifty million dollars 
authorized, an issue and re-issue of fifty million 
of treasury notes provided for ; the President's 
acts — his past indemnified, his future assured 
against ; and so that congress in that month 
launched the huge war. 

Meantime Bull Run* — that dead sea victory to 

* Mr. Wadr at Bull Run. Never was a battle so really and per- 
sistently misapprehended. We ran away and so were defeated. We 
were not beaten on the field. At the most it was a draw. We made 
the assault, and, as raw troops might, went off from the field, leaving 
the amazed foe there. They never pursued us an inch. Governor 
Sprague went and brought off his guns the next day. A party brought 
off the body of Colonel Cameron the second day after. No rebels but 
dead ones were met with. Senators Wade, Chandler, Brown, sergeant- 
at-arms of the senate ; and Major Eaton in one carriage, Tom Brown 
of Cleveland, Blake, Morris and a colleague of theirs, of the house, in 
another, were at the battle — some of them on the field and saw men 
fall. On their return, near the extemporized hospital, Ashby's ' 'Black 
Horse " swept down upon them and caused a panic. I quote from 
Cox's ' Three Decades ' a descriptive passage there credited to another. 

"Mr. relates how his company were charged upon by wild 

riders of sable horses. ' It seemed," said he, in a deliberately penned 



B. F. WADE. 245 

the south Hke so many seeming triumphs— so 
fruitful in far-reaching profits to the north, hke so 
many seeming defeats — had been fought, won, and 
for the time lost. 



description, ' as if the very devils of panic and cowardice seized every 
mortal ofificer, soldier, teamster and citizen. No ofificer tried to rally a 
soldier or do anything but spring and run toward Centerville. There 
never w-as anything like it for causeless, sheer, absolute, absurd 
cowardice, or rather panic, on this miserable earth before. Off they 
went, one and all, off, down the highway, across fields towards the 
woods, anywhere, everywhere to escape. The further they ran the 
more frightened they grew, and, though we moved as fast as we could, 
the fugitives passed us by scores. To enable themselves better to run, 
they threw away their blankets, knapsacks, canteens, and finally 
muskets, cartridge boxes— everything. We called to them, told them 
there was no danger ; implored them to stand. We called them 
cowards, denounced them in most offensive terms, put out our heavy 
revolvers, threatened to kill them, in vain. A cruel, crazy, hopeless 
panic possessed them and infected everybody in front or rear. ' Mr. 
Cox gives much more, describing the awful pack at Cub's Run, pp. 
158-9. From a letter of one of Wade's party, written the morning 
of his return — not deliberate, as its rush of language shows : 'The 
two carriages of the party, which were blocked up in the awful gorge 
at Cub's Run, had become separated. They united after passing 
Centerville, where the left wing of our army were still in position with 
their batteries, not engaged during the day and not seeing an enemy. 
They passed the drift wreck and ruins of abandoned arms and material 
until within a mile or so of Fairfax Court House, where in a good posi- 
tion, under Wade, armed with his famous rifle, as were the rest with 
heavy revolvers, they formed across the pike, Wade, his hat well back, 
his gun in position, his party in line, facing the onflowing torrent of 
runaways, who were ghastly sick with panic— \\. is a disease— called 
out, "Boys we'll stop this damned runaway," and they did, for the 
fourth of an hour not a man passed save McDowell's bearer of dis- 
patches, and he only on production of his papers. The rushing, 
cowardly, half-armed, demented fugitives stopped, gathered, crowded, 
flowed back, hedged in on either side by thick, growing cedars that a 
rabbit could hardly penetrate. The position became serious. A revol- 
ver was discharged, shattering the arm of Major Eaton, said to be in 
the hand of a mounted escaping teamster, whom he had arrested. At 



246 B. F. WADE. 

Early at the ensuing — the regular session — Mr. 
Chandler introduced a resolution to inquire into 
the causes of the disaster of the twenty-first of July^ 
supplemented by the sad affair of Ball's Bluff, and 
the fall of Colonel Baker. The idea covered by it 
was most suggestive. That was the origin of the 
to become famous '' committee on the conduct of 
the war," the most useful of the purely con- 
gressional agencies, in the hands of its own 
members, of the war. The ready house caught it 
up, passed a joint resolution, for a joint committee 
of seven — three of the senate, four of the house.* 

Its efficiency, like that of all congressional com- 
mittees, would depend entirely upon the qualities 
and conduct of its head. Nobody but Wade was 
thought of for chairman. Chandler and Andrew 

that instant the heroic old senator and his friends were relieved, per- 
haps rescued, by Colonel Crane and a part of the Second New York, 
hurrying toward the scene of disaster, and the party proceeded. At Fair- 
fax the gentleman in charge of the second carriage delivered to an 
ofiftcer seven or eight rifled muskets and other property, all his car- 
riage could carry, and thus lightened moved on, reaching the capital 
just before dawn. Wade's exploit, so in character— seven citizens 
stopping a runaway army — was much talked of. Nothing better illus- 
trates the rawness in matters of war than the presence of men of this 
position at this battle. They were there by the special permission of 
General Scott with imposmg passes. Eely of New York, at an early 
hour, was captured and carried to Richmond. Wade would hardly 
have submitted to that fortune." 

^ At the opening of the session, Mr. Conkling, who had been upon 
the ground (Ball's Bluff), and thoroughly investigated the whole affair, 
made on the floor of the house, a masterly expose of the causes which 
led up to and produced that shocking disaster and attending incidents. 
One of the strongest of his many great congressional speeches— the 
first that congress or the north really knew of the facts. This led to 
the action of the house. 



B. F. WADE. 247 

Johnson were with him and Julian, Covode, Gooch, 
and Odell from the house. "^ The committee by 
Mr. Wade, omitting Mr. Johnson's name, madetheir 
first report soon after the close of the Thirty-seventh 
congress, in April 1863, which made three heavy 
volumes of over two thousand printed pages. 
Their second, May 22, 1865, a trifle more in bulk 
— six volumes in all, of over four thousand pages. 
We may only mention some of the leading subjects 
committed to its care: "BullRun," "Ball's Bluff," 
"The Missouri Campaign," and ' * Fremont, " " The 
" Hatteras Expedition," "Port Royal," "Burnside's 
Beaufort Exploits, " '' Fort Donelson," "The Cap- 
ture of New Orleans," ' ' Invasion of New Mexico, " 
"Expedition to Accomac," "The Battle of Win- 
chester," "The Battle of the Monitor and the 
Merrimac," "The Army of the Potomac," " Battle 
of Petersburg," Bank's famous "Red River Cotton 
Raid," Butler's equally famous "Raid on Fort 
Fisher," which Terry afterward carried by assault, 
"Treatment of Prisoners," "The Sherman-John- 
son Capitulation" — a great many more events and 
incidents of the war important then, forgotten 
long since. A large edition, many thousands, were 
printed, of these now scarce volumes, where is re- 
corded so much evidence of generals and others, of 
value to the real historian, who will know the use of 
original evidence, when he C(?mes — not referred to 
by the generals who are now so busy patching their 

* I think Johnson never acted on the committee. It was no place 
for him. Wade and Chandler were the two great men of it. 



248 B. F. WADE. 

fames. It is said that Wade seldom missed a session 
of the committee. The most conscientious of known 
men, never ill — he never neglected a duty, failed 
of an engagement, was never waited for, and never 
failed to meet his foe, one or many.''' 

Largely we are indebted to Mr. Wade for the 
advancement of Mr. Stanton to the war office. 
He strongly urged him upon Mr. Lincoln, who 
soon came to estimate Mr. Wade at his true value. 
Stanton had been the bitterest of Democrats. 
The Republicans then knew nothing certainly of 
his course in Buchanan's cabinet. His appoint- 
ment surprised the senate. Wade knew and 
indorsed him there. That was sufficientf 

The army, the American world, thrilled under 
Stanton's first touch. At his word everybody 
moved, but McClellan. I may but mention some 
of the leading things accomplished by that great 
congress : 

The abolition of slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia, in April '62. The confiscation of rebel 

*So the kindest of men, the most obscure could command his instant 
attention. If at leisure— Ustening to Mrs. Wade's fine reading— he 
arose at once, with his cane, would stride up the avenue to a de- 
partment where all the doors stood open to him, and at once advance, 
if it was possible, the interests of his temporary prot^g6. No man's 
voice was more potent. 1 recall his persistent effort to secure the ap- 
pointment of a grand nephew of Washington Irving to the naval acad- 
emy. When he succeeded he was shocked when told that the gifted 
youth lacked a half inch of the required height. The most laborious 
tasks of a kind-hearted senator or representative were in obedience to 
the endless calls for every variety of thing, from all possible people 
— mainly those having no claims. 

t Senator Pearce of Maryland, was my authority for this statement. 



B. F. WADE. 



249 



property — slaves, maugre the Crittenden platform 
not nine months old, and on which McClellan waged 
war. keeping in its limits. The abandoned and 
captured property law, a title that tells nothing to 
a stranger. It was the act under which all the 
cotton was seized and sold. The great blockade 
and also the rebel intercourse law, under which we 
sought to secure cotton in the rebel lines to meet 
the frantic foreign clamor for cotton, and thus keep 
them from intervening. The important law, 
authorizing the seizure of the railroads and tele-, 
graphs for the public service. Early in July the 
great Pacific railroad scheme was perfected bylaw. 
Though the walls oi the capitol where congress 
deliberated, vibrated in the roar of hostile cannon 
that would destroy it, that congress set at once 
about erecting its great dome. The needs of the 
war, in the fruitful hands of that creative congress, 
the great scheme of the national currency, the in- 
geniously wrought out internal revenue and direct 
taxation laws, that floated the 900,000,000 of 
paper we were obliged to issue. It was not the 
legal tender clause that did this. That was a pure 
compulsion, which ata certain point would be pow- 
erless. It was the national credit based on its im- 
mense actual revenues, which persuaded, that kept 
us swimming though water-logged and constantly 
sinking. Gold ceased to be money, it became a 
commodity, the price of which marked accurately 
how far below the surface our paper was. There* 



250 B. F. WADE. 

were the conscription laws — all the acts of that 
congress cannot be named. 

I recall for a moment the real position of this 
congress, of which none of the busy, covet- 
ous military historians (?) has yet said a word. 
Lincoln, by common consent, stands next Wash- 
ington, then Grant, Sherman, Sheridan (saying 
nothing of the cabinet), in the common estimate. 
What would Lincoln have accomplished had there 
not been a brave, firm, wise, far-seeing congress to 
■advise, create, compel, reward, punish, pay prem- 
iums, bounties, prizes. Where would have been 
the glittering hosts, with the gold-spangled, glory- 
bedazzling generals ? In the true sense, that con- 
gress made and sustained them all — the President 
but executed their will — hence all their fame and 
glory. Nothing of this was or is yet seen. In 
the eyes of the nation in the near foreground there 
were but two figures looming through the dense 
cloud of war — the ever present smoke of 
ceaseless battle. Lincoln colossal, Stanton appear- 
ing and disappearing, sustaining, supporting, 
inflexible, impersonation of one of the great 
inexorable forces of nature. People supposed 
Chase was awfully busy up there in his huge 
stone factory, creating money — paper mostly ; 
poor stuff it was showing, notwithstanding legal 
tender — treasury notes and bonds. They caught 
glimpses of Seward, diminished by the immense 
"distance — little man! standing on the sands 
of the sea, frantically admonishing, waving 



B, F. WADE. 251 

off the eager crowd, English and French, who 
thronged the other shore, hardly restrained from 
jumping into their boats and pulling over to break 
the blockade and help the rebs. " Congress ! Con- 
gress ! Well, ain't old Thad Stevens and old Ben 
Wade there ? They'll keep 'em at work ! " was 
the popular cry. Ah, yes, they kept themselves 
at work, work all the time. W> may see some of 
the other things done, some of the difficulties in 
the way. 

Upon the resumption of its labors at the Decem- 
ber session of 1862, the senate, with becoming 
promptitude, expelled John C. Breckenridge, of 
the old firm of " Buck and Breck," so sharply 
handled by Baker at the extra session. He was 
not present, and his associate Powell did what he 
might to divert or soften the blow. The vote was 
unanimous. On the sixteenth the first bolt struck 
Jesse D. Bright, the greatest Indianian before the 
late Mr. Hendricks. He wrote a letter early in 
March, addressed to " His Excellency, the President 
of the Confederate States," whose name it was 
"Jefferson Davis," whilom a senator of the United 
States, earnestly recommending another rebel, 
who had an improved arm to sell, to his Confederate 
excellency's kind consideration. His defense was 
adroit. He hated to go. The Democrats stood 
by him. The new senators — Harris of New 
York and Cowan of Pennsylvania, Republicans 
both — spoke and voted for him. The votes 
stood thirty-two adverse and fourteen for 



252 B. F. WADE. 

him, and he slept with his poHtical fathers. 
This was the work of young Senator Wil- 
kinson from younger Minnesota. December 
1 8 Sumner moved the expulsion of Trusten Polk 
of Missouri ; called him a traitor by name. 
Trusten had also iiTitten a letter — to an editor. 
Meantime his colleague, Johnston, was gotten ready 
and paired with him, two and two, like the unclean 
in Noah's time. The Democrats joined in their 
cordial send off. Mr. Wade, certain of results — 
he never spoke when he was — remained in grim 
silence through these proceedings, the tone of 
voice in which he expressed his hearty approval 
betraying the cordiality of his concurrence. The 
house took the lead in this " Pride's Ptir'ge.'' On 
the first day Frank Blair moved the expulsion 
of his colleague, Reid. He was sent out on 
the covwion counts, as a lawyer would say, 
as was the ever ponderously truculent Burnett 
of Kentucky. The house did not expend the 
*'ayes and noes" on them. It "agreed'' on 
their cases by good-natured acclamation, which 
one acquainted with the already departed could 
appreciate. Brave white-haired, old Wickliffe made 
Burnett the occasion of some cheering words 
loudly applauded by the Republicans. He took 
the arming of slaves greatly to heart later. 

Meantime the literal Wilkes had intercepted and 
returned Mason and Slidell. America never had 
two sons she could better spare. But here they 
were, and the house so noisily applauded the act 



B. F. WADE. 253 

that it was heard across the Atlantic and added 
much to the compHcated and compromising posi- 
tion the exploit placed us in. Mr. Seward saved 
us. His position was the most difficult and the 
least appreciated of any of the three great secre- 
taries. He gracefully apologized to her majesty, 
and we rewarded the old South sea explorer in 
true British fashion by making him an admiral.* 
There was the dismembering of Virginia — would 
we do it again, under the same conditions and in 
our then temper ? Yes. She was betrayed by 
her sons on all sides. Her great leaders abandoned 
her and themselves. Her small men found in this 
their opportunity. Not a man of them made any 
reputation. Their needs required her division. 
We did it for them. Her very bondmen reviled 
her. Her day is not yet. She promised to sub- 
mit her ordinance of treason to a fair vote of her 
people. Old bawd that she had become — she 
cared for no sanction. Shamelessly she rushed to 
her harlot's couch to find a harlot's grave. The 
chariots of war cut her soil to their hubs. She 
was a wide, red mire. In her return to life she 
brings from her dead past its dead burdens to 
dam the way of new progress, free to her southern 
sisters. It may be that her nearness — lying so clearly 
in our field of vision, her sufferings are more obvious 
— they seem almost more than her deserving. The 

* After the war I came to know him well, of large frame, tall, grim, 
forbidding of aspect, with an aptitude for trouble in business and 
property matters. 



254 B. F. WADE, 

law of retribution executes itself alike on peoples 
as individuals. There is no escape for either. 

Two things of that congress thus far finding 
small mention, of great temporary and some last- 
ing influence, should be here noticed. 

Early in the winter of 1 86 f-2 it became appar- 
ent to the sagacious Vallandigham, one of the able, 
clear-headed men of his day, ardent, ambitious, of 
manly, honorable impulses, largely influenced by 
his unfortunate bias to the south, whence came in- 
spiration and family origin, that to support the 
war, the administration, was to lose — merge the 
Democracy with the RepubHcans and thus efface 
the party. True, as he must have seen, to oppose 
the war the administration was to make the Dem- 
ocracy the allies of the revolted south. He proba- 
bly did not regret that, in view of the end of the 
war at some time. Hence the party in the house 
was reorganized under his lead, and a written basis 
signed by some thirty of that body. Unquestion- 
ably to that action was due many added months 
to the period of the war.'^ 

* Stimulated by his new determination, his givings out were of such 
pronounced character that he was arrested by Burnside's order, sent 
through the lines, went to Bermuda, thence to Canada, and re-appeared 
at the Democratic convention of 1864, at Chicago, having in the mean- 
time been a second time martyred as the Democratic candidate for 
■ governor of his state. When his return was reported to the President, 
it reminded him only of a little story of Sangammon county. The mes_ 
senger hurried eagerly to the despotic Stanton, who peremptorily 
denied Vallandigham's presence in the United States, and closed the 
superserviceable man's mouth by assuring him that no human testi- 
mony ever would convince him of Vallandigham's return while the war 
lasted. 



B. F. WADE. 255 

Very early there came to be a difference in the 
estimate of the President, his policy, capacity and 
intentions, between the distant northern public and 
the leading men of the two houses. He soon be- 
came the theme of criticism, reflection, reproach 
and condemnation on their part. The New York 
Tribune was largely the organ of these congres- 
sional critics, and, as was known, Mr. Greeley, 
with a lantern, was diligently searching all the 
summer, autumn and winter of 1863 for a man to 
succeed him. To such extent did the condemna- 
tion reach, that, at the end of the thirty-seventh 
congress, there were in the house but two men, 
capable of being heard, who openly and every- 
where defended him — Mr. Arnold of Illinois and 
one of the Ohio delegation. Corroborative of 
this, I quote from a speech of one of these on the 
" Bill to Indemnify the President, " in the house, on 
the twenty-eight of February, He dealt first very 
directly with the resounding clamor, denunciation 
and vituperation of the President by the Demo- 
crats, and thus passed to and addressed himself to 
the Republicans : 

These outspoken comments here and elsewhere have at least the 
merit of boldness ; but what shall be said of that muttering, unmanly, 
yet swelling undercurrent of complaining criticism that reflects upon 
the President, his motives and capacity, so freely and feebly in- 
dulged in by men having the public confidence? — whisperings and 
complainings and doubtings and misgivings and exclamations and 
predictions. I have heard men complain that George Washington had 
died, as if untimely, and feebly sigh for a return of Andrew Jackson to 
life. What can be done with such puling drivelers ? — men who have a 
morbid passion to exaggerate our misfortunes, and aggregate and riot 
in our calamities ; and who are never so happy as when they can gloat 



256 B. F. WADE. 

over the sum of our disasters, which they charge over to the personal 
account of the President. I am sick of this everlasting cowardice and 
pallor under reverses. Defeats must come, disasters must come, and 
still greater ones perhaps, and the end is not yet. These men would 
never have worked through the first Revolution ; but that, as this will 
be, was achieved in spite of them. 

Sir, if we fail it will be wholly because we are unworthy to succeed ; 
because we will not with our whole heart and energy, might, mind and 
strength, give ourselves up entirely to this war as do the rebels ; study 
its portents and obey its demands alone. The task it imposes is for 
our human kind. Its work is the'accumulated work of the dead cen- 
turies thrust upon our hands, and its hope is the hope of all the ages to 
be born. If we doubt, assail and cast down those who alone must lead 
us, we might as well now slough into any infamy that men will call 
peace, or skulk behind the mediating scepter of no matter what despot, 
and hide forever our dishonored heads amid the ruins of our nationality 
If any man here distrusts the President, let him speak forth here, like 
these bad leaders, openly, and no longer offend the streets and nauseate 
places of common resort with their unworthy clamor. He may not 
have in e.xcess that ecstatic fire that makes poets and prophets and mad- 
men ; he may not possess much of what we call heroic blood, that drives 
men to stake priceless destinies on desperate ventures and lose them ; 
he may not iu an eminent degree possess that indefinable something 
that school-boys call genius, that enables its possessor, through new 
and unheard of combinations, to grasp at wonderful results, and that 
usually end in ruin ; or, if he possesses any or all of these qualities, 
" they are abashed and subdued in the presence of a danger that dwarfs 
giants and teaches prudence to temerity. He is an unimpassioned, 
cool, shrewd, sagacious, far-seeing man, with a capacity to form his 
own judgments and a will to execute them ; and he possesses an in- 
tegrity pure and simple as the white rays of light that play about 
the Throne. It is this that has so tied the hearts and love of the people 
to him, ihat will not unloose in the breath of all the demagogues in the 
land. It is idle tocompare him with Washington or Jackson. Like all ex- 
traordinary men, he is an original, and must stand in his own niche. 
He has assiduously studied the teachings of this war ; has learned its 
great lesson, and in full time he uttered its great word. He commits 
errors. Who would have committed fewer? Think of the fierce and 
hungry demands that incessantly devour him up. Remember the re- 
peated instances in our own times when the ablest of our statesmen in 
that chair, with cabinets of their choice, and sustained by majorities in 
congress, in times of profound peace, have gone down, and their ad- 



B. F, WADE. 257 

ministrations have perished under the bare weight of the government. 
And then contemplate, if you can, in addition to the burdens that 
have crushed so many strong men, the fearful responsibilities imposed 
upon this man. Is it not a marvel, a most living wonder, that he sus- 
tains them so well ? 

But these gentlemen now denounce the President's pohcy of the war. 
Sir, I remember that others, too, used to complain the same way, and 
just as if the President was responsible for it, and could furnish a policy 
for the war. The war is greater than the President; greater than 
the two houses of congress ; greater than the people, with the new 
Democracy thronm in ; greater than all together, and controls them all 
and dictates its own policy ; and woe to the men or party that will not 
heed its dictation.* 

To Mr. Wade's credit — where he could not ap- 
prove and praise the President he remained silent 
— never praised any one much. Due allowance 
has never been made for Mr. Lincoln's position. 
Seeing all the most advanced saw, he also saw 
what they would not — the slow, the tardy, the 
reluctant. For these he must wait. It required 
all. To rush forward with the van, like an old 
prophet, to risk all mayhap was to lose all. 
In this and in his grand docility to be taught by 
each day of its needs, at the feet of the war itself, 
consists the real greatness of the man. Constantly 
he grew with the people, till he filled their entire 
vision. 

As will be remembered, Mr. Wade did once ap- 
pear openly to criticise the President — not to 
assail him, but to inform the people, warn the 



* No one on the floor or elsewhere replied to or denied these state- 
ments of the extent and character of these Republican criticisms of the 
President. The speech had a wide circulation and became a campaign 
document through the north. 



258 B. F. WADE. 

public. Our success in the southwest, late in 
1863, led Mr. Lincoln to look for a near end of the 
war, and consider the course to be pursued with 
the subdued states. He outlined a scheme which 
alarmed the sagacious men about him. His mag- 
nanimity, like many of his great qualities, extended 
to the border of weakness ; as when, on the fall 
of Richmond, he directed General Hentzleman to 
re-convene the rebel legislature to resume its 
forfeited functions. The time seemed pressing, 
the danger imminent, in the absence of most of his 
associates. The Thirty-eighth congress adjourned, 
its members had gone home. Mr. Wade, in 
concert with Henry Winter Davis, respectively the 
chairmen of the committees of the senate and house, 
on Rebel -States, and on Territories, to whom the 
matter would belong, issued the famous Wade- 
Davis manifesto, reflecting on the proposed policy, 
which produced a most prodigious sensation and 
excitement north. At one with them, the New 
York Tribune, dared not publish it, and it went 
out as a circular. It disposed of the intended 
policy. It brought Mr. Wade under a dense 
eclipse — the first and only one of his life. Fortu- 
nately, he had received his third election, and at 
the hands of a nominal Democratic legislature, or 
his career in the senate would have closed under it* 

* The exact conditions may be outlined for those who may not re- 
member. We had recovered the Mississippi, and with it always bot- 
tomless Louisiana. Mr. Lincoln then tried an experiment of recon- 
struction—his "ten percent." — derisively called— as it took but ten 
percent, of the people to reconstruct. Congress promptly— -Flanders 



B, F. WADE. 



259 



A word further is due the Thirty-seventh cong- 
ress, of which Mr. Wade was such a conspicuous 
figure, and in which his influence was so large, his 
labors so great and useful. It seems to have been, 
possibly, the first whose vision and grasp embraced 
the continent, as well as the interests of the hum- 
blest citizen. It tied the wide asunder shores of 
the Pacific as with the sweep of a mighty lasso to 
the Atlantic — the railroad and telegraph. It en- 
acted the Homestead law. Perhaps the necessity 
which compelled it to deal with vast sums — huge 
armies, marching, fighting over a wide continent, 
dealing in the huge — gave it a capacity for broad 
views, while the very nature of the great contest, 
quickening and inspiring the higher sentiments, 
gave elevation that inspired high aims. It is 

and Hahn were in the house — rejected his senator, and later it passed its 
first act for military governors, and adjourned early in July. The Pres- 
ident didnot receive it ten days before that event, and quietly permitted 
it to die. He thereupon issued his famous proclamation, setting forth 
the Louisiana plan. Its tone was sarcastic toward congress, which 
shared fully the estimate and spirit of the Thirty-seventh congress. 
Mr. Wade and Mr. Davis rejoined in a caustic protest — they called it. 
Mr. Davis was one of the ablest and most brilliant men of his time. 
Mr. Lincoln long balanced Davis and Blair for his cabinet — preferred 
Blair. Could Davis forget it ! Perhaps so. I don't know. He wrote 
the protest — a most admirable performance, saving its tone, reviewing 
the whole ground. And so the world for the first time knew how 
widely asunder the President and congress were. It sided with the 
President, condemned even Wade, would cut off young Garfield on 
suspicion. Wade and Davis were greatly right, the President fatally 
wrong, had his way prevailed. When congress re-convened it stood 
by its champions and no harm came. Mr. Lincoln serenely acquiesced. 
Not so much a ruler. The greatest manager of men the American 
world ever saw. 



26o B. F. WADE. 

not the least indication of its rare aptitude, that 
while it thus dealt with the highest, broadest des- 
tinies of races, as well as of the nation, it neglected 
no minor domestic interest, lost sight of no need 
or requirement of our foreign relations. The huge 
volume of its enactments, the most of which were 
of limited duration, nevertheless contributed much 
to the great permanent revision of 1873. The 
great dome, the free capital, its schools for the 
races, the national banks, the bureau of agriculture, 
are his work — a small part of it. It launched the 
war, made success certain — if it did criticise the 
President. 

Its laws are found in Volume XII Statutes at 
Large, 1440 pages. Bulk may show diligence. 
Ability only by excellence and its degree. Under 
the conditions in which the labors of this congress 
were performed, they do not fall below that of any 
legislative body of rhodern history, however esti- 
mated. Its execution required quick, unerring ap- 
prehension, courage, firmness, wisdom, will, faith. 
The greatest of all was faith. 

The philosophy of a people's history is most 
certainly studied in its laws, whether enacted by 
itself or imposed by a despot. The twelfth and 
thirteenth volumes of the great series of congres- 
sional statutes contain the entire legislation of the 
war. The Thirty-eighth but took up and com- 
pleted the work of its predecessor. Amending, 
perfecting — not originating. Its volume is but 
half the size of that of the Thirty-seventh. 



B. F. WADE. 261 

Incased in these two lie the skeleton of the War 
of the Rebellion, to be restored and clothed with 
life by whoever would best study that. The mus- 
cles, sinews, the intense life, the resistless en'ergy, 
tha* endowed, animated, armed it, which went forth 
to work the law-makers will, departed when that 
will took the from of fact accomplished. 

The thing — the new financial system — barely 
named is destined to permanency. The national 
banks — possibly a direct national currency in some 
form, the great financial convulsion inevitable of 
the war, will remain — an immense step forward. 
No good is so perfect that evils may not owe birth 
to it. The greenback craze was a larvc hatched of 
the national currency, as its near kin the silver 
delusion. The enormous, growing production of 
silver is fast reducing it to a base metal, Experi^ 
ment will doubtless go on tiU the idea is reached- 
and practically accepted, that money was a dis- 
covery, and not an invention of trade. Men can- 
not make more than a temporary representative of 
it — a substitute is impossible. Money — real money 
— is the product of the hand that imparted all in- 
trinsic values to its products. Coining gold only 
declares what for the time that is. It cannot be 
augmented. 

The Thirty-seventh, the promulgator of that 
joint resolution of July, '61, not only confiscated 
slaves, it armed them against their masters.* 

* This thinpj was first brought broadly before the house in a speech the 
twenty-seventh of January, 1862, the first pubhc or private utterance 



262 B. F. WADE. 

The Thirty-eighth congress was elected in '62 
in due time succeeding ; commenced the thirteenth 
volume in April, 1864. Frank Blair repeated his 
assault of Mr. Chase, which barely escaped driving 
him from the cabinet, and might have led to»the 
gravest disasters, of which, thus far, so little is 
known. 

There, in the house, re-appeared battle-scarred 
and crippled Schenck,t with young Garfield, fresh 
from the battlefield. They to become the head 
and nearly the whole committee of military affairs. 
What a task was theirs; volunteering had ceased. 
The conscription law, with its twelve openings, let 
the whole draft through. Of three hundred thou- 



on the subject. The house was startled. Governor Wickliffe would 
not believe he understood the speaker. The claim that while men of 
African blood were by the laws of Kentucky slaves, they were at the 
same time subjects of the United States, had been turned over to it, 
not as slaves but as persons, and owed it allegiance as such, and the 
Uniten States could therefore take their service spite of the master 
and the master" sslave law, efface for this purpose, if necessary, 
all semblance of servitude, seemed beyond denial. No one attempted 
it. After the subsidence of the first impression, many Repub- 
lican along the borders dared not circulate any of the great 
numbers they subscribed for. Judge Thomas of Massachusetts 
said it would abolish slavery even in peace. Slavery was essentially 
abolished when the utterance \.as made. 

fRobert C. Schenck was among the most fortunate in rendering val. 
uable service, the most unfortunate in fame and reward of the distin- 
guished men of that great period. Clear, rapid, very able, of the heroic 
cast of men, he became a target for more unjust newspaper clamor, 
and an instance of the suddenness with which great men are forgotten 
in our time. A volume from him would tell us more of the hidden 
springs of power and success, than all the conflicting accounts of all 
the generals from Grant to Beauregard. He and the other great civil- 
ians still with us should be at work. 



B. F. WADE. 2.(iZ 

sand drawn, but fifty thousand were held. A new 
bill was prepared and the new house of the Thirty- 
eighth rejected it. Then was held that consulta- 
tion in the committee room — the great President 
meeting the generals and two or three others, his 
sad eyes full, the solemn, inner light, by which he 
seemed to see things hidden from mortals, armed, 
inspired. The head and his great young second 
produced their new bill — tJicy passed it. A call 
went out for three hundred thousand. The re- 
sponse from the re-aroused north — the most 
pathetic and arousing lyric of the land — 

We are coming Father .Abraham, three hundred thousand more 
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.* 

Where would Grant and Appomattox have been, 
or Lincoln, without Schcnck and Garfield? 

In the dark days of December, '6i, in the house, 
Garfield met James Gillespie l^laine — of the same 
age. Their entrance upon the pubh'c stage was of 
as much significance to the republic as to them- 
selves. Men with much of great and brilliant in 
common, they yet presented great contrasts. They 
became fast friends, from which flowed influences 
and consequences largely shaping the affairs of 
the republic ; perhaps never to be understood out 
of a small circle. Conkling was still in the house. 
How mysteriously the fortunes of these gifted 

* Frank Moore, editor of the Rebellion Record, has just produced 
the southern popuhir war poems and songs. — Appleton & Company. 
Some careful hand should perform this needed and interesting work for 
the suldier lyrics of the north. 



264 B. F. WADE. 

young men were made to mingle and inter- 
depend. 

The opening of '64 saw Grant on his weltering 
way through the Wilderness. It saw the nomina- 
tions of Mr. Lincoln and General McClellan — 
George B., child of the war, an indubitable failure, 
pitted against the great President, on the strength of 
h.\s failures mainly — and so the people were called 
to pass upon them — upon the war. They declared 
2,200,000 for Lincoln, to 1,800,000 for the gen- 
eral, who, in his days of young glory, used to 
snub his chief, and who recently compared himself 
with Lee — a really great captain.'*^ Twenty-two of 
the twenty-five states' condemned him — under 
whose eyes he performed all he ever anywhere 

did. 

One monument the Thirty-eighth congress 

erected to itself, the thirteenth amendment of the 
constitution abolishing slavery. 

The year '64 lapsed to '65. The great Rebellion 
came suddenly to an end. 

The great President — his work done — suddenly 
departed. 

No creation of the tragic muse ever has or 
ever will equal the dramatic effect of these closing 
scenes. 

Many years are left me, and Wade, the vice- 
president, with a single vote between him and the 
headship of the victorious, restored republic, and 
the end. 

* Written in the lifetime of General McClellan. 



B. F. WADE. 265 

The war in a way fought itself. Its waste and 
ruin, shattered states, its poHtical and social frag- 
ments, will not restore themselves and spon- 
taneously take on new forms, with needed crys- 
tallizations and growths. Great care and much 
time will be needful for these purposes. An 
old civilization, old economies and industries, 
are to pass. There will be the old race preju- 
dices, the greatest and hardest of all difficul- 
ties to be met. We aboHshed slavery. \Vc have 
not yet abolished " the nigger." He is to be out- 
grown — evolved away by a slow process — van- 
ished by evolution. 



chaptp:r X. 

The Conquered. — Task of the Conquerors. — President Johnson. — His 
Reconstruction. — The Thirty-ninth Congress. — New Men. — Civil 
Rights. — The Fortieth Congress. — New Men. — Mr. Stanton. — Im- 
peachment Managers. — The Impeachment Court. — The Trial. — 
Speeches. — Acquittal. — Congressional Reconstruction. — The Freed- 
men. — The Experiment of Their Use. — Mr. Wade's Retirement. — 
The Close. 

The old war horse is comparativ^ely useless for 
agricultural purposes. He is alwa}' hearing the 
bugle call. 

Most of the men fashioned under the influence 
of the rising anti-slavery struggle — all middle aged 
men at the beginning of the Rebellion, in congress 
or elsewhere, in positions where they took active 
part in shaping, impelling, or fighting the war, 
whose mode and habit of thought and mind, ran 
in its narrow intense currents — the men in short 
who demolished the mushroom slave empire, de- 
stroyed the industries of its people, freed their 
serfs, shivered their civilization, by subverting its 
foundations, were not thereby, a prion, eminently 
fitted to clear the soil of the encumbering ruins, 
plant anew their own civilization, rebuild institu- 
tions, and reconstruct the states. This was their 
task without precedent in their own or any other 



B. F. WADE. 267 

history, with no guide but what they knew of the 
field and its occupants, whom they entirely mis- 
understood at the beginning of the war, and whose 
good qualities and aptitudes for peaceful pursuits 
they were yet to learn. Ruined, subdued, sullen, 
the people still enraged, they, the conquerors in 
the pride and insolence of complete and perfect 
triumph, were to attempt this. Never in history 
was a conquest so perfect. The war had ceased to 
be civil, became national, yet no semblance of 
nationality remained to the defeated, with which a 
treaty could be entered into, and terms made. While 
such existed the rebels had refused terms of re- 
turn. The peoples were rather incongruous parts 
of a whole with a once common law, a common 
language, origin, history. So much to begin with. 
The worst — the hardest, most persistent obstacles 
were the freedmen soon to become citizens, while 
the masters remained disfranchised. The first 
thing to decide was the fate of the foe — the leaders 
— traitors by law — eleven great statefulls. But 
one state prisoner was made. 

That Senator Wade would be largel\- and un- 
consciously as all were, under the full influence of 
the law of human nature, the habit of mind pre- 
vailing, was very certain. The conquered were not 
an enemy to be treated with, were criminals — the 
great leaders — to be punished. Probably the gen- 
eral idea never presented itself to his mind, that 
the war was the crisis of a great epoch in the history 
of races, unavoidable, conducted up to in the or- 



268 B. F. WADE. 

derly course of great events, and that the fallen on 
both sides — the losing party in the struggle of 
great systems, freedom and slavery — the future with 
the past, on the great fields of the present — were 
really the victims — the martyrs of that, and not 
the doers of otherwise punishable crimes. Few, 
perhaps, now give hospitality to this notion. If 
named to them it is rejected. For the time these 
leaders were great criminals, to be dealt with — some 
of them — as such. Mr. Davis was solemnly in- 
dicted at Richmond and incarcerated in a casemate 
of Fortress Monroe.* 

Mr. Johnson, on accession to the Presidency, as 
we remember, talked savagely of inexorable pun- 
ishment, would hear to nothing short. Delega- 
tions and embassies, one notable from the churches, 
sought in vain to soften his solemn resentment. 

Mr. Wade of the God-fearing Puritans had per- 
haps advanced notions. He alway remembered 
mercy. He sought to soften the wrath of the 
President toward the offenders. This is the re- 
ported interview — much more was said : 

President J. — Mr. Wade, what would you do, were you in my place, 
charged with my responsibiHties? 

Senator W, — I think I should either force into exile or hang ten or 
twelve of the worst of those fellows— perhaps for full measure, I should 
make it thirteen, just a baker's dozen. 

President J. — But how are you going to pick out so small a number 
and show them to be guiltier than the rest? 

Senator W. — It won't do to hang a very large number. I think if 
you would give me time, I could name thirteen that would stand at the 

* He " adhered to the king's enemies." His more recent givings 
out throw doubt on his giving them provable "aid and comfort." 



B. F. WADE. 269 

head in the work of Rebellion. We would all agree on Jejff Davis* 
Toombs, Benjamin, Slidell, Mason, Howell Cobb. If we did no more 
than drive these half-dozen out of the country, we should accomplish 
a good deal.f 

The President went inexorabh' fuming about for 
three or four weeks, in this vindictive mood. 
He professed more confidence in and reHance on 
Wade, at that time, than on any other man. This 
was a comforting assurance to the Repubhcans in 
congress. He was openly hostile to Mr. Lincoln's 
scheme of reconstruction, and it was supposed Mr. 
Seward would be exchanged for Mr. Preston King 
because of that. The Republican heads who had 
gathered in the capitol in dismay, doubt and great un- 
certainty, returned home feeling reassured. As will 
be remembered, Mr. Johnson was the single repre- 

• Mr. Davis was admitted to bail by Horace Greeley becoming 
surety, and in 1868 the prosecution was dismissed. His citizenship was 
never restored. 

t As may be remembered, Mr. Wade was opposed to the execution 
of Mrs. Surratt. He believed her innocent. 

On Pennsylvania avenue, a few blocks west of the capitol, stands 
the oldest bookstore in Washmgton. In times gone by, when book- 
stores were few, this was a great resort for public men, who 
dropped in to buy a periodical on their way to and from the capi- 
tol. Benton, Clay, Calhoun, Douglas and other notables were daily 
visitors. Mr. Wade, who lived at No. 6 4^^ street, where so many 
congressmen boarded in those days, would always stop on his way to 
and from the capitol and look over the latest things in books and 
magazines. He seemed to take much interest in the literature of the day, 
and is credited with the distinction of having bought the first copy of 
Harper's Magazine ever sold in Washington. The bookseller — Joe 
Shillington— who still lives, takes a good deal of pleasure in recounting 
old memories, and often entertains his customers with reminiscences of 
distinguished men who figured in the country's history thirty or forty 
years ago. One evening lately the writer happened into the old store 



270 B. F. WADE. 

sentative in either house of congress,from the eleven 
seceding states, who remained loyal, and took his 
seat in the senate as stated. Mr. Lincoln later 
appointed him military governor of Tennessee, 
where his services were valuable, and meantime, 
though elected Vice-President, he continued to 
perform the duties as governor. In this capacity 
he reconstructed Tennessee in the winter of 1864-5, 
and Brownlow was elected governor. His ground 
was that, mauger secession, the states were still in 
the Union, which was not the unanimous opinion 
of congress, which alone could settle it by admit- 
ting or rejecting congressional delegations. 

The President was urged to call a session of 
congress. He declined. He retained Mr. Lin- 



and listened to one of his stories of the time attending the trial of the 
Lincoln conspirators. He related in this connection an episode of 
Mr. Wade and Judge .Advocate General Bingham, who prosecuted the 
accused. Said he : 

On the morning of the execution of Mrs. Surratt, Senator Ben 
Wade of Ohio, came into my store and asked if I had heard any news 
in regard to the then all absorbing topic, the sentence of Mrs. Surratt. 
I told him that I had heaid nothing later than the newspapers gave, 
except a rumor that the President had positively refused to interfere. 
"Well," said Ben in his positive manner, "that woman will never 
hang. She has done nothing; to ju-^tify such punishment, and it 
would be a lasting slur upon our reputation for justice and honor if 

Johnson allows public sentiment to murder her. A d outrage, 

sir, an everlasting disgrace. ' After saying this, he went on toward 
the capitol. Soon Bingham (John A.) came in and wanted to know 
if I had heard anything. I told him that Senator Wade had been in, 
and what he said. "Did Wade say that?" asked Mr. Bingham in 
an excited manner. " He did," said F. "W^ell," said Mr. Bingham, 
emphasizing each word with a rap of his cane on the counter, "he 
hasn't read the testimony, and speaks from a superficial and senti- 
mental point of view." He hurried after Wade, and I learned that he 
foimd him in a committee room, where they had a pretty warm col- 
loquy, Mr. Bingham maintaining that the evidence was conclusive 
and the sentence just, and Mr. Wade holding a precisely contrary 
opinion without budging an inch. — {Communicated. 



B. F. WADE. 271 

coin's cabinet. Mr. Seward, it will be remen:i- 
bered, was then prostrate from the wound by the 
conspirator Payne. He speedily recovered, and 
came forth with a strong desire for an immediate 
restoration of all the states. 

A man great in debate, in council, with much 
personal magnetism, he at once quite possessed 
the President, with whom he before had little in 
common. He charmed away his resentments to- 
ward the rebel leaders. He may have roused his 
personal ambitions. He certainly knew the lowly- 
born white, who learned his alphabet at fifteen, 
whose early years were spent on a tailor's board, 
who though a senator, a man of mind, political 
following, had all his life been proscribed by the 
slavery aristocracy, and whose highest aspiration 
— the dearest wish of whose heart was to be ac- 
cepted in its charmed circle — and he may have 
suggested the magnanimous revenge of a great 
soul, and now become their benefactor. Through 
these instrumentalities Seward sought purely what 
to him seemed the best public good. The revo- 
lution in tbe President's mind and plans was un- 
doubtedly the facile work of Mr. Seward. He 
held that reconstruction was properly the work of 
the executive. Congress could not convene till 
December, unless called. That, as stated, the Presi- 
dent refused to do. All the leading Republicans 
whose views were well known were at their 
remote homes, dreaming of no ill. The time was 
favorable. 



272 B. F. WADE. 

The President's first step was a sweeping am- 
nesty and pardon, which restored citizen fran- 
chise, save to the excepted, who were arranged 
in twelve or fourteen classes, and provisional 
governors appointed in North Carolina, Virginia, 
Tennessee, and other states — in short the Pres- 
ident, under the counsels of his secretary of 
state, placed himself fully in the arms of the 
south and of their old and alway allies, the 
northern Democracy, and the Republicans who 
went home returned to the capital to be con- 
fronted with the returned south, clamorous for 
their old places on the old terms. 

So much seems necessary to an appreciation of 
Mr. Wade's position and duties, and so much of 
what followed as my now limited space permits 
mention of. Of course Mr. Johnson's recon- 
structed states, himself and policy, were promptly 
rejected by congress. He and it became objects 
of scorn and derision. He was belligerent, full of 
courage and pluck, and struck back quick and 
viciously where and when he could. Unques- 
tionably he was advised by the ablest Democratic 
lawyers to disperse the Republican congress and 
reconstruct one of southern senators and repre- 
sentatives, with those of the northern Democracy 
and such Republicans as would occupy seats be- 
longing to them.* 

* I was then and ever since a resident of the capital. I knew all the 
leading men very well. The late Judge Jerry S. Black, in the winter 
after the assembling of the Thirty-ninth congress — I believe, in my 



B. F. WADE. 273 

It is thus seen that the Thirty-ninth congress 
met under conditions httle less embarrassing than 
those attending the convention of the Thirty- 
seventh. It began with a bitter feud with the 
President, and when we hold as we must that it 
was the duty with exclusive correlative power of 
congress to prescribe the rule and method of 
dealing with the conquered states — if states they 
still w^ere — it is seen that the President was not 
blameless. His course greatly enhanced the losses 
of the war, and greatly delayed a return to order 
and restoration. There were years of misrule, 
crime and blood to be charged to this unfortunate 
division of counsels. Nor can the northern 
Democracy be held less culpable through this 
period than during the four years of the war, and 
as aiding in the causes which led to that. Of 
course the growing gap thus opened between the 
great party and Mr. Seward severed all purely 
party relations.* 

The Thirty-ninth congress met under extraor- 
dinary circumstances. Its sessions w^ere the 

presence and addressed to me — uttered a bitter denunciation of the 
President, as a weak and most cowardly man. I did not ask what 
instances in conduct he referred to. I had no doubt. The principal 
alarm at Washington was during the summer of '66, after the adjourn- 
ment of congress the last of that July. W^e then organized a club for 
watchfulness. I was counsel for Mr. Stanton in various cases, and 
had several interviews with him on this matter. I now have no notion 
that Mr. Johnson ever entertained the idea of the use of force in his 
unfortunate contest with the Republicans in congress. 

* " What a bungler Payne was," exclaimed old Thad, in one of his 
moments of bitter irony. 



274 B. F. JVADE. 

most memorable of our history. In none were 
the high debating quahties of its men more 
conspicuous. Many new men had entered the 
Thirty-eighth, and several appeared in the Thirty- 
ninth. Edmunds was in the senate, so was 
Guthrie, Garrett Davis, Hendricks, and Yates. 
Reverdy Johnson and Creswell were there from 
Maryland ; Howard was Chandler's colleague ; 
Henderson and Gratz Brown spoke for Missouri ; 
Oregon, sent Williams, and E. D. Morgan was 
with Harris from New York. General Sprague and 
Anthony represented Rhode Island. There were 
other conspicuous men since we glanced at the 
personnel of the Thirty-seventh. Foster of Con- 
necticut was its president. In the house Colfax 
was in his second term as speaker, ready, suave, 
firm, popular. Judge Kelley, beginning in the 
Thirty-sixth, had already reached a great position. 
Shellebarger was back there, and was soon at 
the front as one of the very ablest. CuUom 
and Allison were in that house. Orth, Bout- 
well, Green Clay Smith, Raymond, Hale, Gris- 
wold, Columbus Delano, Hayes and Spalding 
were there together in that house. Randall also 
reelected — not before named — as was Stevens — 
a remarkable house. Conkling, Garfield and 
Blaine were still there. A very able congress. 
Eminently a speaking congress, whose debates, 
often with temper, were the longest, the strong- 
est, and as ably conducted as any shown by the 
annals of cons^ress. Reconstruction was the 



B. F. WADE. 275 

absorbing, all pervading subject — the condition of 
the south, its treatment of the freedmen, its tone, 
temper and attitude. 

There was the great civil rights bill, the amend 
ment of the Freedman's bureau — both passed, 
vetoed, and carried over the President's head. It 
was on the passage of the civil rights bill that 
Wade made his thrilling, exciting speech — in the 
spirit of the old Puritans, seeing the hand of God 
in the prostration of its enemies, and declaring his 
purpose to act with the Almighty. The four- 
teenth amendment was wrought out at that session, 
largely the work of General Schenck. Some de- 
fections, noticeably that of Jim Lane, from his 
radical associates, occurred. Wade administered a 
rebuke to Lane, and he soon after committed 
suicide as did Preston King. It was supposed that 
remorse for his desertion was largely a cause of 
Lane's wretched end. It came to be midsummer 
ere the two houses were through with their great 
labors. During the following winter the citizens of 
Washington, on the twenty-second day of Feb- 
ruary, cordiall}' supporting the President, adjourned 
a mass meeting to the grounds of the white house, 
and the President in a reckless, utterly discreditable, 
painful way, addressed the crowd, singling out his 
enemies b}' name, in response to voices in the 
throng. He did " not waste ammunition on a 
dead duck," (Forney). War henceforth between him 
and the too powerful Republicans was open, bitter 
past treaty or terms. 



276 B. F. WADE. 

The summer following saw his famous progress 
through the north — " swinging round the circle." 
At Cleveland he got angry again. The low-born, 
underbred, pugnacious, uncultured ruffian reap- 
peared, painfully recalling the twenty-second of 
February, and the more humiliating scene in the 
senate chamber of his inaugural address, in the 
presence of the diplomats of western Europe. 
That was the summer of alleged arming of the 
Maryland militia, to aid the President in a sup- 
posed forcible reorganization of congress, of which 
no evidence has yet been produced — none ex- 
ists. That he was advised by some of the ablest 
of his friends to attempt such a solution, there is 
no doubt ; nor }-et that fift}' thousand of the 
trained veterans of the Grand Army of the Re- 
public, under Garfield and others, were in readi- 
ness to come to the defense of the constitutional 
congress. At the flash of the telegraph they 
would appear. There was a ver\' feverish state of 
insecurity at Washington during the absence of 
congress, and a small club of gentlemen, as stated, 
was organized to keep themselves advised of any 
movement that might be set on foot Nothing 
occurred to warrant apprehension. They were in 
frequent communication with Secretary Stanton. 
The alarm was never given. 

The congressional elections of 1866 were most 
disastrous to the President and Mr. Seward. The 
next house was three to one against them. Let us 
hope no conditions in the future will ever produce a 



B. F. WADE. 277 

party powerful enough to set aside a President at 
will and amend the constitution at pleasure. The 
conditions must be full of peril. Such a party is 
itself a great peril. That time was the sorest test 
of the extraordinary qualities of the Republicans. 
History may convict them of mistakes — indiscre- 
tions ; of a want of patriotism, firmness, large 
wisdom, courage, it cannot. In the ensuing ses- 
sion the suspended war on the President was 
pushed with renewed vigor. The now ten con- 
federate states had all rejected the fourteenth 
amendment. They were not states. The military 
government act was passed, the south divided 
into militar\- districts, the Freedmen were armed 
with the elective franchise, and the President's 
hands tied, by the tenure of office law — these in 
spite of his veto and over it. 

On the second of March, 1867, Benjamin F. 
Wade was elected president of the senate — the 
congress passing out of existence with the next 
day. 

That was a great congress. It did many things 
beside those named. It created the pension 
system, with soldier asylums. It directed a revision 
of the statutes ; enacted the homestead law ; revised 
and made effective the Pacific railroad charter. It 
passed the bankrupt act, and contributed much 
useful legislation of permanent value to the Re- 
public. Its (fourteenth) volume consists of near 
one thousand pages. 

Mr. Wade will preside over the senate of the 



278 B. F. WADE. 

Fortieth congress. His election at that crisis had 
great significance. It marked the senatorial esti- 
mate of the times, the general estimate of the 
man. Many regarded it an election to the presi- 
dency of the Republic. Things had been said in- 
timating a removal of ''the executive obstacle." 
Mr. Johnson declared his assassination was in- 
tended, and for the first time he glorified the 
murdered Lincoln. Ere its final adjournment 
without day — save its day in history — the Thirty- 
ninth congress provided by its own act, for the 
assembling of its successor on the day of its disso- 
lution, March 4, 1867. That congress was to sit 
almost continuously. It was to see a return of 
nearly all the states, with their delegations in both 
houses, under the very doubtful plan of congress 
itself, against the declared will of the President, 
attended by the day of the "carpet bag" govern- 
ments of the southern states — certainly a punish- 
ment which, if inflicted as such, the constitution 
forbade. It is probable that the instrument itself 
did not permit the preceding condition of things ; 
but as a matter of law, it may well be doubted 
whether the constitution — the law of the states alone 
— can be said to exist, where and when a state as 
such has ceased. That is a question for legal 
casuists. Mr. Sumner would have divided the 
territory of the confederacy into new states. 

The senate had received some stronger men. 
Simon Cameron for the third time returned to it 
after long absence ; Morrill, fully matured ; Charles 



B. F. WADE. 



279 



S. Drake, a strong man ; Oliver P. Morton, one of 
the strongest, and of the Wade type. There, too, 
now appeared Roscoe Conkling, of full growth, 
presaging war. Two infinities cannot occupy the 
same space. Sumner was still there. Butler, 
Beck and others were in the house. John A. 
Logan reappeared there. Judd from his foreign 
mission. Peters from Maine. 

To supplement and perfect the work of the last 
congress, and carry on the war with the President, 
was the mission of this congress. There was the 
now chronic thing of passing and repassing bills 
and thus escape "the obstacle." Meantime we 
saw the congressional scheme accomplished, and 
all the states restored at the second session. The 
fourteenth amendment was now ratified b\' states. 
Africa was to be represented in congress, and 
that body turned its attention to the vast war debt 
to be funded. 

Already J. M. Ashley, of Ohio, as long before 
as January 7, '6j, had risen in his place in the 
house, and after the imposing formula of Burke in 
the British commons, in his historic impeachment 
of Warren Hasting "of high crimes and misde- 
meanors," and impeached the President of the 
United States. It had been much talked of The 
act greatly impressed the outside world. The 
house was not startled. The matter was sent to 
the judiciary committee, who reported it back the 
day the senate elected Wade to the presidency. 
On the seventh day of March, Mr. Ashley called 



28o B. F. WADE. 

it to the attention of the new house. The Dem- 
ocrats opposed. Mr. Ashley's resolution passed, 
and so he had launched it. Mr. Boutwell, chair- 
man, reported a resolution ordering an impeach- 
ment. December 7, following, it was defeated, 
yeas fifty-seven, nays one hundred and eight. It 
was hoped this disposition was final. 

There long had been a bitter feud between the 
President and the secretary of war appointed by 
Mr. Lincoln in spite of Montgomery Blair's stren- 
uous opposition, and retained by Mr. Johnson 
over his protest. Early in August i^66) the Pres- 
ident asked him to resign. He refused. The 
President suspended him and Grant took his place. 
Under the tenure of office act the President, on the 
twelfth of December, five days after the above deci- 
sive action of the house on his case, first communi- 
cated his action and reasons to the senate. He made 
a strong case of " incompatibility of temper. " On 
the thirteenth of January, '68, the senate declared 
his ^rounds insufficient and "the senate does not 
concur." Grant never liked Stanton. He locked 
the war office door, and with his head pitched 
forward, both hands in the bottom of his pockets, 
took his silent, thoughtful way to headquarters. 
That was before he invented for himself the art of 
speaking. It was suggested to the President to 
nominate General J. D. Cox for the post — a certain 
graceful way out. " I take no backward step " — 
he had proclaimed months before. He loved a 
fight. He hated Stanton. Both the strongest 



B. F. WADE. 281 

passions of his intense nature made him retain Stan- 
ton — or leave him where congress and his friends 
found him. There was an intermediate quarrel 
between Johnson and Grant meantime. The 
President said the general was to hold on till the 
supreme court settled the status of Stanton. The 
general denied, and was lost to the President in 
the war. 

So the matter hung in solution till the President 
removed Stanton, then in possession, and appointed 
General Lorenzo Thomas secretary of war ad in- 
terim. The general moved on the war office, made 
an assault, was himself assaulted, retired, and sued 
the stout secretary for $100,000.^ 

The house took the matter up now with decided 
temper, more than that sorely tried body had 
before shown. The day following the action of 
the senate on the last movement of the President, 
Mr. Stevens reported a new resolution of impeach- 
ment, and after each of the leaders made statements 
rather than speeches — certainly not arguments — 
Mr. Stevens closed pungently ; the vote taken and it 
passed — one hundred and twenty-six to forty-seven. 
So the President soon thereafter was impeached 
pro forma, at the solemn bar of the senate, March 
5. Messrs. Bingham, Boutwell, Wilson, Butler, 
Williams, Logan and Stevens— standing in the 
order of the vote each received — Mr. Bingham the 
highest, one hundred and fourteen ; Thaddeus 

* Mat Carpenter and myself were retained by the secretary— I had 
defended General Terry. General Scofield and General Baker twice, 
once at Trenton, and again in Washington— by his direction. 



282 ' B. F. WADE. 

Stevens the lowest, one hundred and five — were 
appointed managers. 

The opening of the great national court of im- 
peachment for the trial of the President, though 
simple, was imposing. The great chief-justice, in his 
black robes of office, presided — in personnel next 
Washington, the grandest figure in our history. 
Then at his best, of all the men of his time, he 
stands in the field of inner vision, unapproachable 
and alone. By his side sat the president of the 
senate, sixty-eight years of age, with snow-white 
hair and eyebrows, his firm and fine grained face 
smooth shaven and florid, with his unwinking 
intensely black solemn eyes, in which lay the 
unquenchable fire under a thin veil of lashes, always 
ready to flash, his form a little rounded and fuller; 
erect, with no diminution of mental or physical 
force, sui generis, yet the peer of peers.* 
There was the short, compact, fine figure of the 
accused, with his strongly marked iron gray face, 

* No two men of the day presented a more striking contrast than the 
chief-justice and the president of the senate. An incident of the Pres- 
ident's room, characteristic of the two, got whispered outside. Dur- 
ing the trial this room was the robing room of the president of the 
court. One day, at the moment of arraying, this qualifying adjective 
could not be found. The attendant pages, one or two gentlemen 
present, the unbending chief himself took part in a search for this pre- 
fix. The case was grave. The court could not go on. At the last 
moment Wade, who had grimly observed the scene, saw something 
black under some other thing, and lunging it with his cane fished out 
the delinquent black samite which he irreverently held out at the cane's 

end with, "Here, Chase — here's your old gown." The pages 

ghastly at the speech, reverently rescued it. and the pale and silent 
chief-justice was befittingly robed. An added dignity sat on his regai 
brow all that eventful day. 



B. F. WADE. 283 

dark brow, under his iron gray hair, which the 
iron would never leave, with his counsel, Henry 
Stanbery, attorney-general; William M. Evarts, 
Benjamin R. Curtis, William S. Groesbeck, and T. 
A. R. Neilson of Tennessee, on the left of the 
president of the senate, with the managers on the 
right. The senators in their seats. The accusing 
house ranged about in their rear. The available 
space of gallery, lobby, and cloak room was 
crowded with distinguished men and elegantly 
robed women, admitted by card. This on March 
23, 1868. 

Mr. Butler, alwayan indifferent speaker, opened 
at great length, reading from printed slips — his 
nose seeming to touch the paper — to which was 
appended Judge Lawrence's strong brief. Then 
followed the accuser's evidence. 

Judge Curtis opened the defense. He dis- 
sented as justice of the supreme court in the 
Dred Scott case, as will be remembered. One 
of the clearest judicial minds of his time, too judi- 
cial for the highest achievement of advocacy. 
His strength as a lawyer was a rare discrimination ; 
as an advocate, in clearness of statement. Per- 
haps of the great array of lawyers he best met the 
expectation of him. Two days he held the atten- 
tion of the court. 

On the conclusion of the evidence, April 22, 
General Logan delivered a masterly summing-up 
for the managers. Vigor characterizes his speeches. 
He was followed by Boutwell in an able, perhaps 



284 B. F. WADE. 

the most ambitious effort of the trial. Then came 
the Tennessee lawyer, with possibly the handsom- 
est and most rhetorical of all the performances. 
Next in order was Mr. Groesbeck's speech, spoken 
of as, on the whole, the most effective of the great 
occasion. He replied especially to Boutwell. 
Mr. Stevens, seldom happy in his studied efforts, 
with not a pleasing voice or very impressive man- 
ner, worn and already feeble, gave his manuscript 
to Butler — of all men — to read for him. Then 
came Evarts for the defense. He never failed. 
It was thought he would never end. His argu- 
ment, illustration and presentation were admirable, 
with some play of wit. No one could have met 
the expectation of him. These who had heard 
Stanbery at his best in Ohio and wished to see 
him bear the palm of this great forensic battle, 
as he might once have done, were prepared for 
the disappointment that strangers experienced. 
Long ill-health, shattered nerves, over anxiety, 
left him a splendid ruin. John A. Bingham closed 
the case in an over-prepared, though able, and, in 
many ways, conclusive speech. I've heard him 
much more effective, notably in reply to Wads- 
worth's masterly and brilliant first speech in the 
house of the Thirty-seventh. 

The case was submitted. 

On May 11 the senate, in the midst of the 
profoundest excitement, voted on the eleventh 
article. The vote stood — guilty 35, not guilty 19. 
Later the vote was taken on such other of the 



B. F. WADE. 285 

articles as the managers desired, with the same 
result, the senators each gave the same vote on 
each issue. The President was acquitted. The 
impeachment court adjourned sine die. Those who 
voted guilty were Anthony, Cameron, Cattell, 
Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Conness, Corbett, 
Cragin, Drake, Edmunds, Ferry, Frelinghuysen, 
Harlan, Howard, Howe, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, 
Morrell of Vermont, Morton, Nye, Patterson 
of New Hampshire, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sher- 
man, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, 
Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson and Yates. 
Not ^/////'/—Bayard, Buckalew, Davis, Dixon, 
Doolittle, Fesenden, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, 
Hendricks, Johnson, McCreery, Norton, Patterson 
of Tennessee. Ross. Saulsbury, Trumbull, Van- 
Winkle and Vickcrs. It was thought after the 
first vote that Ross would vote guilty on the later 
tests. It is thus seen that a change of one. of 
several Republicans from the negative, would have 
convicted. It was best as it was.'-' 

Mr. Wade was criticised in some quarters for 
his votes on the final question. It was said he 
was directly interested, and voted for himself. 
This is an unjust view. On the trial he was a sen- 
ator. He and a majority of his state, believed the 
accused was proved to be guilty as charged. So 
believing, and appointed to the dut y of passing 

* The writer, then practicing law at the capital, was asked to be re- 
tained to prepare the evidence against the accused. He deemed it un- 
wise to accuse, and declined. He always honored Fessenden and 
Trumbull for their votes. 



286 B. F. WADE. 

Upon the question, how could he escape the duty 
and thus enable a flagrant criminal to escape pun- 
ishment, remain where he was, and repeat offences 
in other forms? No one for an instant supposed 
he was influenced by any consideration on earth, 
save his clear sense of what was due to justice and 
conscience. 

His public career closed with that notable Forti- 
eth congress. He was succeeded by Allan G. Thur- 
man. The state evenly maintained her well estab- 
lished position by the exchange. Fairly estimated, 
she neither gained nor lost. Her new senator had 
perhaps more culture, but not distinguished for 
that. In intellect not a whit Wade's superior. 
He had a wider, larger hold of the public. He 
never attained Wade's position with his fellows on 
the floor. In down right manliness, courage, firm- 
ness and independence, he was in no way Wade's 
peer. There were but few who could claim to be. 
Thurman filled a much larger space in his party, 
and so in the public eye ; but, let the truth be said, 
it takes a much larger man to be one of our great 
Republican leaders than it did, or does, to fill that 
role with the Democracy. Wade was a singularly 
unambitious man, as seeking place and preferment. 
Had he been a Democrat, and covetous of leader- 
ship, he would have been a king. Some of his 
more striking qualities were at higher premium in 
the Democratic party. 

The mushroom negro governments were some- 
thing worse than the saddest of failures. They 



B. F. WADE. 287 

seemed a necessity, originating in the blindness 
and stupidity of the northern people, which, after 
all, has shown itself to be something prodigious. 
The adherence of the northern Democracy to the 
south through the ante-war struggle, unwittingly 
on its part, was a potent inducement to the south 
to take the fatal initiative of attempting to dissolve 
the political association. Of course, that she 
would seriously attempt that, was as unforeseen by 
the Democrats as the earlier Whigs and later Re- 
publicans. A party which should pursue the ante 
bclliim course of the Democracy, with no worse 
purpose to gain than its continued ascendancy, 
certainly is not to be convicted of sagacity over its 
political enemy. It was the same stupid, blind 
party after the war that it was before. It pursued 
the same means to the same end. It clamored 
very effectively at the north for the redemption of 
the crushed south from military oppression, under 
the Republican methods, devised to relieve the 
Freedmen of the atrocious oppressions of the un- 
regenerated masters, and, notwithstanding the ex- 
perience of the northern voter with that Democracy, 
he showed such an alarming tendency to again 
trust it, not only with his own fortunes but with 
the government of the political fragments, to which 
its well-remembered misconduct had reduced the 
south. The Republicans were justly alarmed. 
The course pursued showed that they dared not 
longer trust solely to the people of the north. 
True, in a long series of years the many times 



288 B. F. WADE. 

changing popular estimate of men and things 
settles itself into irreversible and generally just 
forms. The need was too great, the time too 
short, to trust to this slow movement in the ex- 
igency. They armed the freedmen with the 
elective franchise, and trusted that under the lead 
of Republican agents, they would stand firmly and 
courageously by their personal and political re- 
deemers. Curiously enough slavery had imparted 
to them neither courage, wisdom nor forecast. It 
was supposed that an African, taught by two hun- 
dred years of personal bondage, would prove 
superior to the average white man under the 
same conditions. It needed an experiment to 
demonstrate the fallacy of this. Its failure was the 
bitterest disappointment. The great long-continued 
war hadfshattered the common basis of morals of the 
average man. The many agents entrusted with 
the construction of these anomalous political ex- 
pedients, were as unfit for the task as the only 
material at hand for the edifices. None but the 
highest, rarest human qualities, never abundant, 
was equal to the difficult if not impossible task. 
Congress was armed with the power of restoring 
the disfranchised rebel to citizenship. It created 
the forms of states. It restored the disfranchised 
rebels, by fraud, force, guile, violence ; these thrust 
by the cowardly, stupid, still slaves in heart, 
mind and spirit ; and took possession of the state 
governments made to their hands. So the south 



B. F. WADE. 289 

came back by means complementary of the blood 
and revolution by which it went out. 

The chief-justice, in a group of gentlemen nom- 
inally assembled for a social purpose, thus stated 
the Republican position before the experiment. 
The northern clamor is for restored states. It will 
not cease until that is accomplished. That issue 
must be passed out of the field of national politics. 
The Republicans are necessary to the country. 
The employment of the freedmen is a necessity to 
them. The third proposition of this syllogism was 
obvious. One present replied — " The condition 
of the south under slave rule will appeal more 
powerfully to northern sympathy than its domi- 
nation under the military district law can. The 
issue will not be passed out of national politics." 
It was "tried ; what followed is history. Its ex- 
ample would be valuable, but conditions never can 
exist when it may be useful. 

With her sons in the army, Mrs. Wade who had 
before been much with her husband at the capital, 
took up her residence with him there, during the 
later of his eighteen years of senatorial service. 
They had pleasant, convenient rooms on Four and 
a half street, northwest, intermediate between the 
great capitol, the executive mansion and great 
departments. A man of action, of silent cogita- 
tion, without literary instincts, not a compiler of 
reports, a composer of speeches, or a writer of 
letters — (a few cramped notes, in a hand that 
would have been the despair of Daniel, lie before 



290 B. F. WADE. 

me) — the least social of men, unless sought in 
hours when public men might be enquired for, he 
was alway found at his rooms in even pleasant 
good humor. Mrs. Wade, gifted with qualities 
that might have made her a social leader, an orna- 
ment, from the first, fully appreciating the quali- 
ties of her husband, devoted her fine powers, her 
time, her life to him. They were beautiful in their 
mutual self-devotion in the few eyes which saw 
their secluded serene life, in the heart of the great 
capital, the soul and centre of the great civil con- 
vulsion. She wrote his letters, cared for his cor- 
respondence, was his thoughtful memory, a tender, 
considerate part of his conscience. She read to 
him, giving the charm of her voice, the grace and 
help of her fine quiet elocution, to aid the delivery 
of her author, to his appreciative mind. The real 
unseen X\{t of this manliest of men, and that of 
one of the womanliest of women, which became 
one so late in their lives, was lovely in its oneness. 
There is a borderland, sometimes a desert, which 
surrounds the public life of the capital, broad or 
narrow, as the individual sharing in that life was 
brief or continuing. Some never pass it success- 
fully. Men distinguished in congress return, seek 
subordinate places — haunt the capital, like souls 
whose bodies are buried, but will not depart. How 
many names of the first spring to mind, some of 
which may be mentioned. Mr. Whittlesey lived 
and died at Mrs. Hyatt's ; Mr. Giddings was often 
at the capital, could turn to no pursuit ; Samuel 



B. F. WADE. 291 

Vinton was an instance, and died in exile. Mr. 
French of Maine came back, secured an auditor- 
ship under Mr. Lincoln, and spent the remainder 
of his life in the dingy Winder building, made 
short by it. Innumerable less fortunate instances 
of living men crowd the memory. The country^ 
the capital, are full of these restless, ruined lives. 

Mr. Wade, with his noble consort, safely and 
serenely made the transit of this border country. 
He was never bitten of the Presidency as were Mr. 
Seward, Mr. Chase, and many of our living men. 
He remained steadily to the end in the bosom and 
confidence of the Republican party, while, curi- 
ously enough, Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, Mr. Sum- 
ner and Horace Greeley all died out of it — exiled 
in a way by men created by the fruits of their 
labors. 

Something more remains to me. Not tortured 
by the Presidential mania, and barely flavored with 
the life at the capital — the Wades returned to their 
Jefferson home. The little mud and forest- 
leagured town of his law student days had grown, 
became long since a beautiful, thriving centre and 
capital of one of the largest, most populous and 
wealthy of the farming counties of Ohio. It now 
had the appearance of an old, cultured town, con- 
spicuous for fine residences and tastefully orna- 
mented grounds. The Wade mansion was one 
of the most spacious and noticeable of these. 
Here, at seventy, the retired senator and his wife- 
renewed, rather than resumed, their former life. 



292 B. F. WADE. 

Many changes had occurred. Many friends were 
dead or departed. A new generation were in 
blooming maturity. The old house was haunted 
with memories, cherished or sad, pleasant or de- 
pressing, seen through a softening atmosphere of 
time. During the black days, it was a source of 
light, a centre of strength, courage and hope to 
the hundreds of fainting men from the wide region 
around. How many men and incidents were 
recalled as the now glad survivors came to wel- 
come them back. There was the memorable 
visit of the oldest brother, who pushed off first 
from Feeding Hills to Albany. He had grown 
up an all through Democrat, bitter, intense, in- 
veterate. It was in the earlier years of the rebel- 
lion — a famous physician and surgeon, he came 
leisurely to visit his surviving brothers and sisters. 
From the opposite poles the eldest and next the 
youngest of Mary Upham's boys met in the Jeffer- 
son mansion and joined battle royal — the differ- 
ence being mainly the merits of the respective 
causes each advocated, and of which he was master. 
From twilight deep to dewy dawn the stormy 
battle raged. The sun arose on their wrath. They 
did not forget their blood, heated as it became. 
Fiery as was Frank in matter of temper, he had 
the advantage of the equally stout James. Did a 
Wade ever yield ? James was not in the least 
subdued nor much enlightened. Had the Demo- 
crat of that day aptitude for light ? — a question, 
as Falstaff said, to be asked. Later, the war 



B. F. WADE. 



293 



did for him what it failed to accomplish for 
the southern — it reconstructed his views. He 
lived to rejoice in his younger brother's career. A 
Wade was never heard to speak well of the 
younger brothers — however glad and proud he 
may have felt for the positions and distinguished 
services of either. 

Ohio, Ashtabula county, the Reserve, as the 
whole country, had seen the course of its senator 
in the Wade-Davis manifesto abundantly vindi- 
cated by later light. That did not detract from 
the now pathetic glory surrounding the name of 
Lincoln. It did add luster to the name of Wade. 
With the reticence of the Puritan, neither his old 
neighbors or he ever referred to the subject, or if 
they did he replied as to Clayton, *' We will regard 
it as settled by the statute of limitation." They — 
many — must have been ashamed of many things 
they had said. He did valiant service in the 
Grant canvass of 1868. He was a private citizen 
now, not claiming any of the privileges spring- 
ing from his years, which still sat lightly on him, 
and ready to meet the calls of his old constituency 
and party, as a citizen might. 

It was quite generally supposed at the capital 
that President Grant would offer him the depart- 
ment of the interior. Much was buzzed about 
and in his ears of it. So far as he might he 
silenced the busy tongues, and seemingly enter- 
tained no thought of it. He never was in an 
attitude of expectancy of any position, and had to 



294 B. F. WADE. 

be sought out alway by it, as we have abundantly 
seen. He did his old work with the old effective- 
ness in the unhappy Grant-Greele)^ campaign. 
He was a chief from the San Domingo commission, 
under the nominal leadership of Babcock. "^ He 
was of pure English descent. Had an English- 
man's instincts to dominate the earth, an Ameri- 
can's aspiration for the advancement of large 
interests by his nation. The rejection of the treaty 
was a grave mistake, due to Sumner's unworthy 
hostility. Whoever visits the islands can appre- 
ciate the meaning of geography, with any capacity 
to apprehend the right uses of vast undeveloped 
resources, and should, in the absence of reasonless 
prejudice, see that one of the tasks of the American 
people is to help the world forward by the means 
to be drawn from these sources. There is no 
argument against their honorable acquisition that 
would not also have barred the purchase of 
Louisiana and Florida, toward which their acqui- 
sition were two inevitable steps. "Manifest 
destiny, " however derided, is the law of national 
advance, prematurely proclaimed, as was the 
senseless cry, " On to Richmond," and as inevita- 
ble of fulfillment as that proved in the bloody 
sequel. Mr. Wade aided in the state canvass of 
1875, was a delegate to the convention of 1876, 
and Presidential elector. He very promptly 

* " Wade was the man of the commission," said General Boynton, 
who attended it, on his return. 



B, F. WADE. 295 

repudiated the Hayes southern poHcy ; as for him 
it was inevitable.* 

Mr. Wade also was sent under the statute to 
inspect and report upon the construction of the 
Union Pacific railroad. His performance of that 
duty was not perfunctory. With the thorough- 
ness with which he performed all labors, this task 
was executed. His report quite put an end to the 
uncertainty as to the actual condition of that great 
work. His strength and vigor remained, and 
these were but pleasant episodes of his later years, 
which were rounding and ripening an eventful life 
of rare symmetry and great usefulness. He was 
among the rarely fortunate men of his great 
period. The country was fortunate in his posses- 
sion, fortunate in a man to do many important 
things beyond the reach and strength and courage 
of common men. She never had any cavil about 
his compensation or reward. 

The production of these sketches was due to 
the cherished life-long friendship of their subject 
for the writer, and to the memory of one of the 
dearest to his affections early to fall. 

It was due to our countrymen, the writers of 
her histories of the peoples and individuals, that 
some continuous record be made, and somewhere 
lodged, of him, to which reference may be had at 
least by historians. 

The men of to-day are too much absorbed in the 

* There was another side to that. The southern states were lost to 
the Republicans by the Grant administration. There was no use in 
struggling further for them. 



296 B. F. WADE. 

drum and trumpet sketches of battles, the mere 
mechanics of the war, to care much for the men 
and their work, whose fire kept in motion the great 
heart whose mighty and steady beatings, created 
and sustained — made battles successful and fames 
assured, to care much for the career or labors of 
those who performed this task, or what may be 
said of them. 

Benjamin Franklin Wade died at Jefferson, 
March 2, 1878. 

They made his grave near the heart of his life- 
long home, and set at his head a granite shaft less 
enduring than the influence of his deeds for truth 
justice, freedom and his country's good. 



INDEX. 

A 

Abolition immediate — Mrs. Heyrick 129 

Of Slavery in the Northern States 120, 121 

Of Slavery in English colonies 129, 130 

Of Slavery in the District of Columbia 248 

Of Slavery in United States by Thirteenth Amendment. ... 26^ 

Sentiment, rise of 126-130, 157-161 

Struggle passed all the stages of logical progress 238 

Advocacy — Its difficulties and value 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, 107 

In the Impeachment trial 281-284 

Adams, J. Q. — Champion of right of petition 131 

Opposed to abolition in District of Columbia 131 

Made an abolitionist by opposition 131 

Admiralty Laws extender! to Lake Erie 88 

Statutes of Ohio 88, 89 

Collision case between Wade and Fillmore 106 

Ancestors of the Wades in America 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 

Andover, the Ohio home of the Wades 47, 48, 49, 50 

Ann Bradstreet, the tenth muse 18, 20 

Antislavery Senators in Thirty-second congress 174 

Ashley, J. M. — Impeachment of the President 279 

Attorney-Prosecuting, Wade — elected in 1835 89 

B 

Bar of the Western Reserve 77- 78, 105 

Badger's appeal — Wade's reply 199 

Banks, N. P. — Speaker of Thirty-fourth congress ; election 

sectional 206 

Barn Burners of 1848 165 

Bench of Ohio 71, 72, 108, 109 

Benton, Thomas Hart — Estimate of Douglas 173 note. 

Elected to the house 192 

Describes Douglas' amendment ; Kansas bill 193 

Voted against the Kansas bill 199 

Retirement and death 199 n. 

Bingham, John A. — Prosecutes Mrs. Surratt 269 n. 

Controversey with Wade concerning 269 n. 



298 INDEX. 

Manager in the Impeachment trial 281 

His speech 284 

Birney, James G 131-158. i59 

Vote for President in 1840 159 

Vote for President in 1844 ; its significance 164 

Black, Judgejerry's estimate of Wade's reply to Badger 200 n. 

Blairs, Montgomery and F. P. , Jr 239 n. 

F. P. Renews assault on Secretary Chase, 1864 262 

Blaine, James Gillespie — Estimate of Clay and Webster 189 n. 

Meets Garfield and Conkling 263 

Bradstreet, Governor — Ancestor of Wade 18, 19 

Ann — Tenth muse 18-20 

Mercy — Wife of Nathaniel Wade 21 

Brooks, Preston S. — Assaults Sumner 208, 209 

Not expelled 214 

Declines to meet Burlingame in Canada 214 n. 

Brown, John — Raid on Harper's Ferry 222, 223 

Bull Run, First Battle of ; Wade there 244 n. 

Buchanan's vote for President, 1856 217 

Burlingame, Anson — Challenged by Brooks 214 n. 

C 

Cass, Lewis— Candidate and vote 1848 165, 166 

Senator when Wade entered 173 

Introduced Sumner to the senate 173 

Wade replies to his Collins subsidy speech 181 

" Noise and Confusion " speech, 1848 181 

Campaign of 1840 149-157 

Capital— In 1851, population, city, life 169-171 

Capitol building ... 170 

Cameron, Simon — Compact with Wade and Chandler 215-16 

Carpetbag governments, origin and failure of 286-289 

Chief-Justice Chase's view of 289 

Chandler, Z. — Compact with Wade and Cameron 215-16 

Chase, Salmon Portland— Senator from Ohio 166 

Presented Mr. Wade to the senate 172 

One of the five senators 174 

Pen sketch of i79 

Address on the Nebraska-Kansas bill 193-194 

Sharp contest over it with Douglas 194 

Speech against the bill i95 

Elected governor of Ohio 205 



INDEX. 299 

Popular view of, as secretary of treasury 250 

Assailed by Frank Blair 262 

Necessary to make Freedmen citizens 289 

Choats' unavailing appeal for Webster in 1852 187 

Civil rights act passed 275 

Civil war, the — A logical result of contending forces 237-238 

Rebels victims of rather than criminals 267-268 

Claims private — Wade on committee of 177 

Congress should not deal with 179-80 

Clayton, John M., returned to the senate 191 

Called to account by Mr. Wade 213 

Clay, Henry — Candidate — Vote in 1844. 162, 164 

Estimate of r62 

His compromises of 1850-51 167 

His course toward Mr. Webster in 1852 186, 187 

Death of. 182 

Collins' Steamship Subsidy — Wade's speech against i8i 

Compromise measures of 1850-51 167 

Of Mr. Crittenden, defeated 241 

Mr. Crittenden's Resolution of July, 1861, adopted 242 

Congress — The Thirty-seventh — 

Not elected to suppress the Rebellion 237-238 

Convened in the presence of armies 239 

Its leaders Wade and Stevens 240-241 

The Crittenden resolution 242 

Passed — Two in the negative 242-243 

The men who did not vote 242-243 

Called session July 4, i86r 239-244 

Its labors 244 

Abolished slavery in the District of Columbia 248 

Its position in the war 250, 259, 261 

Its appropriations, labors, etc 248, 251-261 

E.xpelled traitors — Breckenridge, Bright, et al 251-252 

Vallandigham reconstructs the Democracy 254 

Criticises the President 255, 256 

Permanent measures 259, 260-261 

Congress — The Thirty-eighth — 

Continued the work of the Thirty-seventh 262-263 

The twelfth and thirteenth stats, at large 260-261 

Legislation the skeleton of the war 261 

The Thirteenth amendment— A monument of 264 



300 INDEX. 

Congress — The Thirty-ninth — 

Its new men — Its difificulties 273-274 

Its labors and achievements 275-277 

Congress — The Fortieth — 

Election, men and work 276, 278, 279 

Civil Rights act passed 275 

Conkling, Roscoe, elected to the Thirty-sixth congress 232 

Speech on the battle of Ball's Rluff 246 n. 

Meets Garfield and Blaine 263 

Transferred to the senate 279 

Corwin, Thomas , visited the Western Reserve in 1840 155 

His power as an orator 155 n. 

Secretary of Treasury under Fillmore 172 

Once a possible President 172 

Re-entered the house 232 

D 

Day of Doom — A poem by Wade's ancestor . . . 21, 24 

Davis, Jefferson, in the senate — Thirty-second congress 174 

Davis, Henry Winter, author of the Wade-Davis manifesto. .257, 258 n. 

Democratic party in Ohio, 1839 132, 136 

Causes of defeat in 1840 150, 153 

Elects Polk in 1844 — the vote 164 

Defeated in 1848 — the vote 166 

Success in 1852 — the vote 188, 189 

Divided — defeated i860 — the vote 234, 235 

Its course led to the Carpetbag governments.. . , 286,287 

Its great men compared with Republicans 286 

Dixon and Butler interrupt Wade — his reply 197 

Douglas, Stephen A., a senator when Wade entered 173 

Over-estimated by associates 177 

Introduced Kansas bill 192, 193 

Sharp contest with Chase 1 94 

Speech on the Sumner assault 210 and n. 

Course in the Kansas war 233 

Candidate for President, i860 234 

His vote 235 

Dudley, Governor, of Massachusetts, an ancestor 19 

Ann , the tenth muse 18, 20 

E 

Erie, Lake — Useless to the pioneers 51 

Connected with tide water 59 

Admiralty, laws of 88,89 



INDEX. 301 



Feeding Hills' Parish— Wade's birthplace 28, 30 

Home life there 28—40 

Migration from 4^ 

Fillmore, Millard— Meets Wade at the bar 106 

As Vice-President, opposed Taylor's administration 1-72 

Approves the compromise measures of 1850 172 

Defeat in Whig convention, 1852 186-7 

Candidate of the Knownothings, 1856 217 

Carries Maryland 217 

Free Soil Party rise in Ohio, 1848 165 

Presidential vote 166 

Presidential vote, 1852 189 

Fremont, J. C, brought forward by the Blairs —his vote 216 

Freedmen utterly incompetent as citizens 287, 288, 289 

Supposed necessity for employing them 287, 288, 289 

Carpetbag governments a failure 286 

c; 

Garfield, James A., on military committee 262, 263 

Labors with Schenck 262, 263 

Meets President Lincoln 262, 263 

New conscription bill 262, 263 

Meets Blaine and Conkling 263 

Was to command — if force used by President Johnson 276 

Garrison, Wm. Lloyd 130- 158-9 

Giddings, Joshua R.— Wade's first partner 80 

Censure of by the house 161 

Speech on the Oregon boundary 164, 165 

Unites with the Free Soil party, 1848 166 

Nominated for the senate 166 

Head of the committee on claims 180 

Unites with Chase in the Kansas manifesto 193 

His district exchange him for John Hutchinb 232 

H 

Hale, John P.— One of the group of senators i74 

Pen sketch of. i79 

Candidate for President, 1852 189 

Hammond, Charles — Articles on slavery 130 

Harrison, William H.— Nominated for President 1839 149-150 

Campaign of 1840 i49-i57 

Issues in i49-^57 



302 INDEX. 

Mr. Wade's labors in 99, 100, 154, 155 

Death and effect of it 157 

Harper's Ferry — Raid of John Brown 222 

Resolution of Mason in the senate concerning 223 

Wade's speech on 224-229 

Heyrick, Mrs. Elizabeth — Immediate abolition 129 

Houston, Samuel — In senate when Wade entered it 174 

Speech and vote against the Kansas bill 198-199 

Hutchins, John — Defeats Giddings— Thirty-sixth congress 232 

J 

Jacobs Law Dictionary — Blessed of older lawyers 63 

Jackson's labors, etc 149 

Jefferson, Thos. — His task 148 

Jefferson and Jackson contrasted 148 

Jefferson Village— When Wade admitted 75 

When he retired 291 

Close of life there 291 , 296 

Johnson, Andrew — In the house — Thirty-second congress 175 

As President — views of reconstruction 269—271 

Interview with Wade — the fate of the rebels 268 

Coarse and reckless speeches — the man 275-276 

Quarrel with Stanton 280-281 

Quarrel with Grant meantime 281 

Impeachment and trial of 281, 282, 283, 284, 285 

Jury Trial — Its importance , 76 

K 

Kansas-Nebraska bill, January 6, 1854 192 

Bill assailed by Giddings and Chase 193 

Sharp contest over — Chase and Douglas 194 

Wade's speech on the bill 195-198 

Bill passed both houses 198-199 

Struggle for possession ot 202, 203, 206, 207, 208 

Memorial of New England clergy on 202 

Lecompton constitution 233-234 

Admitted into the Union 236 

Knownothing party — (American) rise of 204 

Divided Ijy slavery 217 

Nominated Fillmore 1856, vote 217 

I. 

Lake Erie in 1821 51 

Connected with tide water 59 



INDEX. 303 

Subject of admiralty 3g__ 

Collision case— Wade and Fillmore 106 

Law and lawyers in the early time 60, 61, 105 

Law student life ' 6"-^ 

Law practice ;,;;;;; ;o2." 106, 107 

Law library of the United States 219 note 

Lincoln, Abraham, elected i860— the vote 235 

Prelusive debate with Douglas 234 

Not elected to fight the war 237, 238 

Journey to the capital '238 

Cabinet not warlike 239 

Stood colossal in the popular eye 2-0 

Criticised by Republicans in congress 255, 256, 257 

Plan of reconstruction 258 n. , 259 

Wade-Davis criticism of it 257 258 n., 259 

Meets Schenck and Garfield— the draft of 1863 263, 264 

Re-elected 1864— his vote 264 

Dramatic close of his life and the war 264 

Loco Foco party (Democratic)— Origin of 103 note 

Logan, John A., re-enters congress 281 

Elected manager impeachment trial 281 

His speech 283 

Maroons— Runaway slaves— Spanish 12- 

Mason, J. M. , senator in the Thirty-second congress 174 

Resolution on John Brown's raid 223 

Wade's speech on 223-229 

Medford— Ancient seat of the Wades 17 

Missouri Compromise 127 128 

Morgan. E. B., of Nfw York, rescues Sumner .209 

N 



192 



Nebraska-Kansas bill by Douglas (see Kansas) 

Divided into two territories loo 

Extent of territory jo- 

Wade's description and speech i^e 

Bi'l passed i^g^ 199 

New England ancestors of Wade 17-21 

Transplanting in Ohio 43-47 

Clergy on the Kansas bill .202 



304 INDEX. 

o 

Ohio — Planting Puritans in 43-44 

Judiciary of— law reports 72, 77 

Northern lawyers of 104, 105 

Financial ruin of 1837 92, Q3, 102 

Change in business methods 103, 104 

Black laws of 131, 132 n. 

Senate— <Mr. Wade in 133, 134 

Democratic legislative memorial— Wade's speech 220 

P 

Parsons, General, of the Revolution 97 

H. E., grandson of — brother of Mrs. Wade 97 

Removal to Ashtabula 97 

Pearce, James A., chairman committee assault on Sumner 209 

His perfunctory report . 209 

Potter, John F. , challenged by Pryor 236 

Thad Stevens names the weapons 236 n. 

Voted against the Crittenden resolution 242 

Powers, Gregory, speech in the Ohio senate, 1839 138 n. 

Prosecuting-Attorney Wade elected 89 

Prosecution of Mrs. Surratt by John A. Bingham 269 n. 

Putnam, Rufus, planted a colony in southern Ohio 43 

Pugh, George E. , in the senate, presents the Ohio Democratic 

memorial — His speech 220 

R 

Ranney, Rufus P. , partner of Wade 92 

Rise at the bar •...'... 92, 104 

Republican party, national, 1856 216, 217 

i860, vote 235 

Logically conducted to the war 238 

Its labors after the war 266, 269, 272, 285 

Its reconstruction faulty 286, 287, 288 

Its freedmen governments a blunder 286-288 

Its impeachment of the President a mistake 281, 284, 285 

Success in 1866 276-7 

Shows extraordinary qualities 277 

Dangerously powerful 277 

Reserve the Western — origin, — sketch of, &c 43, 47 

Called New Connecticut 44 

Rosekrans — Wade — Caroline — parentage — sketch of 97 

Removes to Ashtabula 97 



INDEX. 305 

Meets Wade.... ^^^ ^^^ 

Their marriage, 1841 

Home in Jefferson— birth of children 102 n 

Life in Washington ". ' / '. .'289-291-292 

Latest life in Jefferson 292-296 

s 

Schenck, Robert C — Re-enters congress from the war 262 and n 

Chairman mihtary committee 262-263 

The draft a failure 262— q 

Passes an effective conscription 263 

Estimate of him 262 n 

The Fourteenth amendment largely his work 275 

Scott. Dred-Case '. V.'.V. .'. "218-219 

Seward, Wm. H. —Eulogy of Wade's labor on Erie canal 58 

Defeats Marcy in 1838 j .„ 

One of the five antislavery senators 174-17C 

Pen sketch of. ^ g 

Leads antislavery Whigs, 1852 187 

Position difficult 2S2-=;3 

Popular vision of him during the war 250-51 

Course in Johnson's cabinet 271-272 

Ceased to act with the Republicans 273 

Stevens calls Payne a bungler 273 n. 

Sherman, John— Enters the house of representatives 205 

Wade's eulogy of 224-225 

Shows high qualities in the Kansas war 232 

Candidate for speaker Thirty -si.xth congress 232 

Slavery— In England .119-120 

In America 120-133 

Immediate abolition of— Mrs. Heyrick 129 

Black laws of Ohio in aid of 131-132-n. 

Act of Ohio legislature, 1839, in aid of 134-137 

Wade's speech on 138-144 

Abolished in the northern states • 120, 121 

Abolished in District of Columbia 248 

Abolished in United States by Thirteenth amendment 264 

Contest passed logically from argument to war 238 

Speech— Wade's inaptitude overcome 81, 82, 85, 86, 87 

American facility in yj 

Wade's supposed at Ashtabula, 1840 loo-ioi 

Wade's Ohio senate, 1839 138-144 

Wade's Collins' subsidy 181 



3o6 INDEX. 

Wade's reply to Toombs-Sumner assault 211 

His Harper's Ferry 224-229 

Defends John Sherman 224—25 

Wade — the Rights of Freemen in territories 229-232 

Speeches of counsel in the impeachment trial 283-284 

Stanton, Edwin M,— A born warrior 240 

Blair at feud with him 240 n. 

Revolutionary — unscrupulous 241 

Urged upon the President for secretary by Wade 248 n. 

Attorney-general in Buchanan's cabinet 248 

His presence everywhere fell 248 

One of tlie colossal forms of the war 250 

At feud with President Johnson 280 

Removed but remained 281 

Resists his successor and is sued 281 

Stevens, Thaddeus— Candidate for speaker Thirty-second con- 
gress 176 

Names the Pryor-Potter weapons 236 n. 

Leader of the house 241 

Made of Revolutionary material 241 

Calls Payne, the assassin, a bungler 273 n. 

Reports the impeachment of President Johnson 281 

One of the managers 281 

His speech on the trial — Not a happy speaker 284 

Stump speaking, origin of — Introduced north 154 and n. 

Sumner, Charles — Elected by coalition 173-179 

Presented by Cass — Seat on Democratic side 179 

Chase and Sumner. ... 179 

His Pliillipic against slavery— Butler 208 and n. 

Assaulted by Brooks 208-209 

Speeches on— Slidell, Douglas, Toombs 209-211 

Wade's reply to Toombs an 

Welling's account of the scene 211 n. 

Report of committee on 209-10 

Personal effect of the Brooks assault 214 n. 

Would make new states of southern territory 278 

Symmes, John Cleves — Land grant on the Ohio 43 

T 

Te.xas — Mr. Wade's opposition, 1837 134 n. 

Annexed 164 

Toombs, Robert — Approves of the Sumner assault 211 

Denounced bv Wade 211 



INDEX. 307 

Dr. Welling's description of the scene 211 n. 

The expected challenge 212 n. 

Wade would punish a baker's dozen of rebs 268, 269 n. 

U 

Upham, Mary— Wife of James Wade, mother of B. F. Wade 27, 28 

Marriage 28 

Home in the Feeding Hills 28, 29 

Her life, labors and children there 28-37 

Migrated to Ohio .^ 

Life on the Western Reserve 67.60 

She passes away 6q 

\ 

Vallandigham. Clement C— Reconstructs the Democracy, 1861-62 254 

Van Buren— Prosecuted General Hull, 1814 156 and n. 

Divorced the government and banks 14^ 

His course in 1848 ; defeats Cass 165 

Return to Tammany 1852 j8e 

Virginia— Dismembered 2-3, 2^4 

Her course and suffering 2-3, 254 

W 

Wade, Jonathan— of England, plants at Medford 17 

Nathaniel Major— Son of. 



Marries a daughter of Ann Dudley Bradstreet, 



Generations of in America 21 

James— Fifth of— Father of B. F .25, 26, 27 

His mother grandchild of Rev. M. Wigglesworth 21 

He weds his cousin, mother of B. F 28 

Mary Upham .27, 28 

Home in Feeding Hills parish 28,' 29 

Life there ; their children 28-37 

B. F., Born i8oo 31 

Personal traits and character 13. 14, 15, 16 

Education— New England primer, etc • 31.39 

Alway called Frank, younger brother Ned 32 n-39, 40 

Migrates to the Western Reserve 1821 41-48-50 

Life in the Ohio woods ^0-56 

Becomes a drover _ g 

Visits his elder brother James 57, 58 

vStudies medicine -g 

Works on the Erie canal -g 

Seward celebrates it in the U. S. Senate 58 n. 



3o8 INDEX. 

Returns, studies law 6i 

Law and lawyers of that day 60-66-105 

Law student life 65, 66 

Mary and James pass away 68-70 

B. F., admitted to the bar 71. 72 

First case 78 

Practices law 88 

Partnership with J. R. Giddings 80, 88 

Great difficulty in speaking — succeeds 81-87 

Elected prosecuting attorney 89 

Personally very popular 90, 91 

Caught in the ruin of 1837 92, 102 

P artnership with Ranney (see Ranney) 92 

Marriage — his wife (see Rosekrans) 97, 102 

Business extended 104, 105 

Meets Fillmore at the bar 106 

Elected judge, 1847 109 

His circuit 109 

His great success on the bench ., no 115 

Overrules Ohio supreme court and prevails 112, 113 

Retaxation of costs — anecdote 113 

Elected United States senator 114 

Action of the bar ..iiS 

State senator (the politician) 92, 133 

Report on legislative divorces 133 

Opposes municipal public improvements 133 

Kentucky asks for state fugitive slave law 134,137 

Speech on the bill 138-144 

Defeated for re-election, 1839 144 

Labors in the campaign of 1840 99, 100, 154-5 

Washington as he found it, 1851 169-171 

Enters the Thirty-second congress 171 

The senate chamber 172-173 

Some noted men 173-176 

One of the five 174—5 

The senate an able body 175 

On claims committee 177 

Speech on the Collins subsidy 181 

Stirs up Cass 181 

Speech on Nebraska-Kansas bill 195-198 

Reply to Badger i99-2oo-n_ 

Judge Black's estimate of it 200-n. 



INDEX. 309 

Reply to Toombs— the Sumner assault 211 

Dr. Welling's account of it 211-note 

Toombs did not challenge him 212-n. 

Calls Clayton to account 2iq 

Compact with Cameron and Chandler 21? 216 

Re-elected to the Thirty-fifth congress 220 

His position in the senate 220, 221, 240, 241, 250, 251 

Reply to Democratic state memorial 220 

Speech on Harper's Ferry Raid 224-229 

Eulogy of John Sherman 224-225 

Speech on the rights of freemen to the territories 229-237 

At Bull Run 244 n., 245. 246 

Chairman committee on the war 246 

His labors— their extent 247 

Vouched for Mr. Stanton 248 

Vote on expulsion of senators 2^2 

Voted for the Crittenden resolution 242-4C! 

Wade-Davis manifesto 2-7, 2-8 n 

Interview with President Johnson— fate of rebels 268-9 

Believes Mrs. Surratt innocent 269 

Elected president of the senate— its significance 277-8-9 

Appearance in the impeachment trial 282 n. 

His vote in that trial Criticised 28- n. 

Senatorial career closed 286 

Compared with Thurman, who succeeded him 286 

His life in Washington 289. 290, 291 

Public men bitten of Washington life 290, 291 

His later life at Jefferson 292, 293 

His brother James' visit— Their battle 292 

His San Domingo mission 294 

His inspection of the Pacific railroad 295 

His latest political labors 293, 294. 29- 

The rounded completeness of his life 295 

His exit 296 

Reasons for this sketch of him 295, 296 

Washington, as Wade found it, 1851 169-173 

Congressional life there 170-171 

Webster. Daniel— Candidacy and vote, 1852 186 

Choate's vain appeal for him 187 

Clay's course toward him 187 

His chagrin and death ■ 188-189 "• 

Weld, Theodore, revolt at Lane seminary 130-131 



3IO INDEX. 

Welling, Dr. J. C, recounts the scene of Wade-Toombs 211 n. 

Whittlesey and Newton, Wade's preceptors 59-61 

Whig Party— Rise of in 1834 133 n. 

Campaign of 1840 149-157 

Campaign of 1844 162-164 

Success of in 1848 164--5 

Disappeared in 1852 188 

Wilkes, Commodore, captures Mason and Slidell 252-53 n. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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